March 20, 2008

sports

YS runners earn all-American status

2008 All-American Track & Field Team; Jake GunderKline at far right.

Two Yellow Springs athletes earned honors over the past two weekends at the national championships for their schools.

This past weekend Yellow Springs High School junior Jake GunderKline finished sixth overall out of the 11 finalists in the one-mile race walk at the Nike High School Indoor National Track and Field Championships in Landover, Md. GunderKline, one of YSHS’s top distance runners, ran a lifetime best of 7:16.29, an improvement of nearly 14 seconds over his previous best time. GunderKline went out fast, and managed to outlast Maine’s Tyler Campbell down the home stretch of the eight-lap race. Texas senior Ricardo Vergara won in 6:34.98.

At the Collegiate Indoor National Track & Field Championships on March 7 in Johnson City, Tenn., Goshen College sophomore Tina Peters held onto her NAIA National Championship title in the 3,000 meter race walk. The 2006 YSHS graduate nearly lapped the entire women’s field on her way to win the race in 15:22.43. New York’s Rachel Rhodes came in a distant second.

This is Peters’s third national collegiate title for Goshen College as she also won the NAIA Outdoor Track & Field Championships last May in Fresno, Calif.

Spring recreational soccer to begin

The Yellow Springs recreational soccer program will begin its spring season on Saturday, April 5. Players who participated in the fall season will remain on the same teams. Coaches will contact the players for practice prior to the start of the season.

New players can sign up by contacting Lynn or Bill Hardman for Gold (sixth through eighth grade) and Silver Cup (fourth and fifth grade) at 767-8433; and Bob Curley for Bronze Cup (first through third grade) at 767-7070. Copper Cup players (4-years-old through kindergarten), new and old, need only show up at the Morgan Building field at 10 a.m., on April 12. League Director Jim Hardman can be reached at 767-2200.