Brevitt helps Dixon to fifth; Sterling wins comfortably

Alex T. Paschal/Telegraph photos ABOVE: Dixon's Jaselyn Cavanaugh prepares to hand off to Vicky Jones in the first exchange of the 400 relay on Friday during the Dixon Invite. BELOW: The Duchesses' Alyse Dewey participates in the triple jump Friday.

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DIXON - After generally running faster and jumping higher than its opponents, Sterling's girls track team was ready for some more fun.

So after the final scores of the Dixon Invitational were announced Friday, the Golden Warriors gathered in a tight circle near the finish line for their version of a victory dance.

It was a somewhat understated celebration, however, with the challenge of the Sterling Night Relays looming next week.

"Overall, it was just a solid team effort for all of our girls," Sterling coach Dennis Hartz said. "We scored in just about every event. We spread our athletes around, and they all did a really good job."

"This meet showed how good we can be," Shanna Loos said. "Hopefully, next week we'll be even better. I'm pretty excited for the weeks to come."

Sterling finished with 111 team points, comfortably ahead of Freeport (85). Rounding out the top five were Moline (62), Geneseo (58) and Dixon (42).

Loos and teammates Katie Johnson and Ceara Campos combined to take top honors in the triple jump. Their combined distance of 98 feet, 11 inches broke the meet record of 96-6 set by Freeport in 2004.

Sterling won two more field events. The high jump threesome of Kaitlin Loos, Connie Sciacero and Johnson combined to clear 15-0, while the pole vault trio of Jackie Sciacero, Abby Haak and Hannah Moore went 27-0.

Sterling's other win came from the 410 hurdle shuttle team of Johnson, Kaitlin Loos, Jackie Howze and Devon Neal (1:11.45).

Sterling finished second in six events (discus, long jump, fresh-soph 400 relay, fresh-soph 3,200 relay, fresh-soph 800 medley relay and fresh-soph 1,600 relay) and third in one more (shot put).

"We're still developing, tweaking here and there - we're a long way from peaking," Hartz said. "Next week, when we have the Sterling Relays, it's going to be a little bit tougher. We'll have Rock Island there and they're always tough. In a relay-type meet like that, I think we can compete with them.

"After that, we've got the conference and the state series. There's a long ways to go - we're not satisfied yet."

The top performance for Dixon came from distance ace Breanna Brevitt, who turned in a 5:23 in the mile team race, a personal best by two seconds. That led Dixon to second place in the event. Kate Gillespie and Jenny McBride were the other two Dixon runners.

"This is the biggest meet we've had so far this season, so I knew I was going to have a lot of competition," Brevitt said. "I was pumped up for that. I knew I had to get out there in the front at the very beginning and keep my spot. That's what I set out to do."

"Breanna Brevitt ran the race of her life in the mile, after running an 800 in the two-mile relay," Dixon coach Susie Piper said. "She did an excellent job."

The lone win for the Duchesses came in the fresh-soph 3,200 relay, where Liz Hillard, Alyse Dewey, Lindsey Brevitt and McBride finished in 10:47.90.

Dixon, which competed without Kellsi Howell, one of its top performer, had some outstanding individual performances. Whitney Didier cleared 10-0 in the pole vault, Emily Hubbell cleared 5-2 in the high jump and Lauren Roth led the sprint relays.

"There's a lot of potential for us in the coming weeks," Piper said.