(EDITOR’S NOTE: Since May of 1999, the Times News Sports Department has featured an On This Date practically every day, highlighting an event that happened in the past. With the coronavirus putting a halt to sports locally and nationally, the On This Dates have been expanded to the stories that actually ran in the next day’s newspaper. Today’s On This Date story is from May 16, 2002).

By Kate Huvane

khuvane@tnonline.com

For the girls in the TIMES NEWS area, it was strength winning over speed at the District 11 AA track and field championships, as Marian’s Mary Horvat, Panther Valley’s Diana Bruch and Palmerton’s Val Kuehner each earned tickets to the PIAA meet in field events.

In fact Bruch, who captured gold in javelin and silver in shot put, was so adamant about where her focus is that she remarked, “I’m a thrower, not a runner” after participating in a relay.

She’s a thrower who established a season best and took first place with a hefty throw of 130 feet, nine inches in javelin. Her winning toss soared a whopping eight feet further than that of the second place finisher, Nativity’s Lindsey Smith, and bested her second place seeding of 124-3.

The defending district javelin champion surprised even herself.

“I’m ecstatic. I waited all season to throw 130,” said Bruch after securing her second trip to Shippensburg in two years.

“I just hope I can do this well next week.”

She also achieved a season best in the shot put, burying the seventh-seed 33-9 distance with a throw of 35-6 3/4.

However, it wasn’t enough to top Horvat, who cleared a personal best by 10 inches with a stellar score of 36-10, earning her a second straight district gold in the event.

“I’m so thrilled,” said the elated senior. “I knew this was my last chance to go to states, so I got myself psyched up, got the adrenaline pumping and just let it go.”

Horvat, who also finished fourth in discus and fifth in javelin, clearly recorded her strongest performance in shot put, an event in which she was seeded third.

She has made it a goal to try to repeat yesterday’s feat at the PIAA meet.

Bruch and Horvat will be joined next week by one more female athlete from the area, Palmerton senior Val Kuehner.

When the javelin event wrapped up, however, Kuehner wasn’t exactly ready to pack her bags for Shippensburg. Not only did she not finish in the top three, but thanks to some inaccurate information, she was led to believe that she might not have reached the qualifying mark.

“I was scared,” said Kuehner. “I didn’t want to celebrate right away because I didn’t know for sure.”

Luckily it was just a misread, and Kuehner soon found out the she did indeed reach the qualifying mark on 117 feet with a throw of 117-8, securing her first trip to the state meet.

“I’m very excited. (Going to states) is all I wanted.”

Unfortunately, the one area player who many projected would not just qualify for but also medal at states was forced to scratch all three of her events.

Northern Lehigh’s Lacey Strohl, the top seed in the 400-meter dash and number two seed in the 200, was robbed of the chance to defend her district medals. It took a severely aggravated hamstring to catch up with the runner who could outrun every female athlete in the area.

“It’s a sad ending to a great career,” said NL coach Bryan Geist after Strohl was forced to scratch from the races.

The hamstring she pulled at the start of the season and reinjured during the 200 trials at last week’s Colonial League meet came back to haunt her again, on the day that could have made her the only athlete in TIMES NEWS history to medal at states all four years.

After Strohl “toughed it out for the last 30 meters” of the 200, “We talked it over, and there was just no sense in her trying to run when she could really shred her hamstring,” said Geist.

The day went much smoother for two other area girls, Kate Wehr and Lauren Suter of Northwestern, who didn’t qualify for states but did take home medals. Wehr took third in the 110 low hurdles with a time of 17.19, and Suter tied for the bronze with a mark of 4-10 in the high jump.

Wehr, a junior, fell short of her season best time of 16.9 but used a strong finish to earn the bronze medal.

“I was glad to hold my seed,” said Wehr. “My coach told me to get out of the blocks faster since I always start slow. So, I tried to push myself at practice to come out faster.”

A bronze medal also went to Tamaqua’s 4x800 relay team, which held its seed of third place.

Several other area girls finished in the top five.

Coming in fourth were Northwestern’s Jess Gasper (300 hurdles) and Steph Beitler (800) and Tamaqua’s Eileen Gurcsik, while fifth place honors went to Tamaqua’s Gurcsik (200), Mary Litzenberger (3200), Katie Mussoline (110 hurdles) and Shanna Hill (long jump); NW’s Suter (shot put and discus) and Lauren Wuscher (triple jump) and Palmerton’s Karen Sander (400).