PIAA Track & Field – Saturday Highlights

By: HSSN Staff
Saturday, May 23, 2015 | 10:45 PM

A baseball field sits next to the track at Shippensburg University, and Beaver Falls’ Dom Perretta turned a double play at the PIAA track and field championships Saturday.

Perretta won two events – the Class AA 800 and 1,600 – on the final day of the two-day competition. He was one of only two WPIAL athletes to win two events.

Knoch’s Jordan Geist won the Class AAA boys shot put Saturday, one day after he won a gold medal in the discus.

For Perretta, it was the second year in a row he won both the 800 and 1,600. Perretta is only a junior, which means he could finish his career with a half dozen gold medals. No opponent could keep up with Perretta in either race this year.

“I’m happy I won, but I really wanted that record in the 800,” said Perretta.

Perretta won the 800 in 1 minute, 53.30 seconds while the record is 1:51.96. He won the 1,600 in 4:13.92. He is only the second runner in the history of Beaver Falls to win a state championship in a distance event.

Geist, a sophomore, became the first male athlete in Knoch history to win a PIAA title on Friday when he won the discus. He must have liked the feeling because he doubled the fun, winning the shot put with a throw of 65-9 ¾.

Geist improved on each of his six shot put throws, but he came up a little short of his goal. He was hoping to reach the Class AAA championship record of 70-0, set in 2005 by Central Dauphin’s Ryan Whiting.

“I wanted to get 70 feet, but I can’t have too many complaints through the weekend. It was pretty good,” said Geist.

Overall, the WPIAL had a dozen champions in individual events, down from 15 a year ago. There were three winners Friday. Besides Geist, the others were Connellsvile’s Madison Wiltrout, who smashed a Class AAA championship meet record in the javelin with a throw of 182-9, and Eden Christian’s Tyler Carter, who won the Class AA triple jump.

On Saturday, the WPIAL had winners in nine individual events. Counting Perretta’s two titles, the WPIAL had five winners in distance events. The other three were North Allegheny’s Madeleine Davison (Class AAA 3,200 in 10:27.20), Vincentian’s Marianne Abdalah (Class AA 3,200 in 10:55.93) and Quaker Valley’s Hannah Bablak (Class AA 1,600 in 5:02.30).

Four of the champs from the WPIAL this weekend were sophomores. They were Geist, Wiltrout, Abdalah and Burrell’s Nicole Scherer, who won the Class AA 100 in 12.32 seconds. Scherer’s race was a battle to the end as Breanna Gambrel of Athens finished second at 12.33.

“This is crazy,” said Scherer. “I tore my hamstring tendon in my leg last year and I didn’t even run all of last year. I came back to run on relays just for the WPIALs. I came up here [to the state meet] and I remember just sitting here, watching and wishing it was me. Today, I did it, although I don’t really know how.”

Mars’ Ori Rinaman said he used to watch the PIAA meet on television and wondered what it would be like to walk up to the winners stand and accept a gold medal. He found out Saturday wen he won the Class AAA 110 hurdles with a time of 14.39 seconds.

The other winner from the WPIAL is known more as a football player. But Apollo-Ridge’s Tre Tipton, a Pitt football recruit, won the Class AA long jump with a leap of 22-9 ½. It was the final track and field event in Tipton’s career. He will play only football at Pitt.

“This is the last thing I’ll do in my high school career,” said Tipton. “What a way to go out. I feel like God has really blessed me. Hopefully, he’ll bless me some more in my college career.”