Tinley Park girls take sectional title in track and field
There is a tradition with the Tinley Park High School girls track and field team.
Each year after a sectional event, the team stops off for some ice cream before heading back to the school.
The team did it again May 10 with a post-sectional treat at Whitey’s Dairy Palace in Tinley Park.
“It was a little bit sweeter this time around,” Titans coach Wayde Tabor said.
That’s because the team brought a little hardware back from Country Club Hills.
For the first time in school history, the Titans won a sectional girls track and field title, taking the Class 2A Hillcrest Sectional championship. The Illinois High School Association has held girls track postseason meets since 1973, and TP has offered track at least that long.
“They were very excited,” Tabor said. “Toward the end of the meet, they thought it was going to happen and when they heard the announcement, they got really excited.”
He made sure they knew the significance of the victory.
“Once they won it, I told them ‘no one else can be the first and nobody can do what you guys just did,’ ’’ he said. “They all started smiling, and it started to click a little bit. They were like ‘oh, my God, we actually did something special.’ It was really cool to see that.”
With young talent leading the way, more hardware could be on the way. But the Titans were savoring this victory.
Sophomore Gabby Graham led the way with first-place finishes in the 100 meter hurdles (16.17 seconds) and 300 hurdles (:47.40).
Sophomore Kaylah Forrest won the 400 with a :58.29.
“Once I saw them on the track for the first time, I knew we had something special in those two,” Tabor said. “I liked their work ethic and the way they handled themselves coming to practice.
“We knew we had a good sophomore class last year and adding them to the mi. ... They had that killer instinct of ‘I’m not going to lose.’ ’’
The 400 relay team of Graham, junior Janiyah Oglesby, freshman Jordin Lee-Armstrong and junior Taylor Holland qualified for state with a second-place finish of :49.03. (The state meet was held May 19-20 at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston.)
Last year, the 400 relay team of Graham, Holland, Oglesby and Forrest took sixth place in the state, the first relay team in program history to medal. Before that, only five individuals from the school ever earned a state medal in the sport.
Senior Sophie Hummitsch qualified for state in the 3200 with a second-place finish of 13:37.77.
Tinley Park’s winning score of 128 points was 26 points better than runner-up Marian Catholic. Providence Catholic took seventh with 60 points and qualified Natalie Papes to state in the pole vault with a first-place finish of 8 feet, 11.75 inches.
Tinley Park opened the season with the idea that it wanted to make history.
“We’ve been talking about a sectional championship since we started in January,” he said. “We started putting it in their heads that this was possible. I walked them into the gym in early March and showed them the banner up on the wall in the gym.
“They all noticed there was no sectional championship and our motto during the season is that we wanted '23 to be on the flag. We’ve been talking about that all year long.”
That spot on the banner will be bare no more.
“We knew we had a shot,” Tabor said of winning the sectional. “We came in third last year, and we were freshman- and sophomore-heavy last year.
“We knew we had the talent to definitely be in the running. It’s not a total surprise but it’s always a little bit of a surprise when it actually happens.”