The Chelsea Standard
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
DeTroyer state's best in 400 meters
By Don Richter, Sports Editor
PUBLISHED: June 5, 2008
Chelsea's girls' track and field team finished its season as one of the state's best teams, placing fifth overall at last Saturday's Division 2 final at Zeeland.
Advertisement
The Bulldogs ended up with 26 points.
Winning the Division 2 state championship was Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern with 54 points.
Finishing second was Ypsilanti with 40 points, while Detroit Renaissance was third with 35 points and East Lansing fourth with 34 points.
Sixty-seven schools competed in the final.
"This meet went about as well as it could for us," said Chelsea coach Pat Clarke. "Each girl performed just super. We took six girls and won 10 All-State medals."
Leading Chelsea on the day was sophomore standout Olivia DeTroyer, who won a state championship in the 400-meter run placing first with a school record time of 56.49. Only Division 1 state champ Brittani Williams of Jackson, who finished with a 56.08, bested DeTroyer's clocking.
"Olivia ran the race of her life," Clarke said. "She has worked very hard at her running all year long and certainly deserves her state championship."
In the shot put, senior Jillian Fischer placed sixth with a throw of 36-feet, 7 ? inches. Though not placing, Fischer tossed the discus 115-6.
Senior Cassie Coffman ended up 12th in the state in the pole vault clearing a personal best 10-0.
Junior Erin Benjamin reached the state semifinals in the 200 meters with a time of 26.2. In the preliminaries, she ran a 26.6 for Chelsea.
In the 1,600-meter relay, the Bulldog foursome of freshman Corinne Carpenter, Cassie Coffman, DeTroyer and Benjamin placed second in 4:06.1.
"Junior Erin Benjamin again came through for us in the final race of the day, the 1,600-meter relay," Clarke said. "Erin took the baton in sixth place and with a great surge moved us up to a second-place finish. With that effort, the team moved up to a fifth-place overall finish in the state."
Ypsilanti won the 1,600-meter relay state title with a 3:57.89.
Christina Coffman, DeTroyer, Carpenter and Benjamin finished fourth in the 800-meter relay with a school record time of 1:45.47.
East Lansing won the 800-meter relay state crown with a clocking of 1:43.73.
Clarke said Chelsea's performance at the state meet made him proud.
"It was a fitting way to cap off what has been a truly outstanding season for our team," he said.
On May 27, the Bulldogs competed in Washtenaw County's Meet of Champions at Ypsilanti.
Chelsea won seven medals at the event.
Fischer finished first in the shot put with a heave of 36-8. She also bested the field in the discus with a personal best 123-6.
Ashlee Walker also performed well in the shot put for the Bulldogs throwing a personal best 31-4.
In the pole vault, Cassie Coffman finished fourth with a mark of 9-3.
In the 400-meter relay, the Chelsea quartet of Christina Coffman, DeTroyer, Carpenter and Benjamin placed third in a school record time of 51.05. The previous record had stood for 32 years.
"We entered seven people and won seven medals," Clarke said. "You can't do much better than that."
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
Expanded
Web
Coverage
TOP JOBS
