Springs Valley Community High School

On Tuesday night, the Springs Valley girls’ track and field team loaded its bus, drove the hour and a half it takes to get to Seymour, suited up and got to work against the likes of Jennings County, Bedford North Lawrence, and the host Owls at the Seymour Sectional. Despite not being 100 percent — the Blackhawks didn’t even have an entry in the 1600-meter run, didn’t start in the 1600- or 3200-meter relays, and only had one entry in each of the 100- and 300-meter hurdles despite being allowed two — Springs Valley still managed to excel. Representing one of the four smallest schools in the 12-team grouping, the Blackhawks made the most of their limited numbers. They racked up 66 points as a team and placed fifth. They only fell behind Seymour, Jennings County, Brownstown Central, and BNL, the last of which only outscored the ‘Hawks by .33 points. “They outperformed what we expected out of them,” Springs Valley coach Derek Freeman said. “For that to happen with a lot of PRs, a lot of people just stepping up and competing when we’re coming off conference and county meets where we were injured and we were putting the bare minimum together and we were just trying to get healthy, I was just blown away by their performances left and right.” Some of the evening’s biggest performances came in the shot put in the discus. After taking multiple decades to win a sectional championship in a throwing event — Ella Meehan won Springs Valley’s first in the shot put in 2022 — the Blackhawks won two on the same night. Sarah Drabing started the evening by breaking her own school discus throw record not once, not twice, but three times. The senior’s previous best was 112-3, then during Tuesday’s preliminaries she raised it to 112-5. She opened the finals with a throw of 113-2, then flung one 117-3 to raise the bar even further and claim the sectional championship. Meehan got her work done early in the shot put. Her second throw measured in at 35-3, giving her an improvement of more than two feet over her title-winning throw in 2022 and, of course, a second sectional championship in a row in the event. Drabing backed her up by placing second in the shot put. A personal-record throw of 32-7 put her right behind her teammate. The Blackhawks also got a fourth-place finish from Leigh Carnes in the discus throw as the junior hit a personal-record 96-2 and just missed out on qualifying for regional. “I don’t know if we can quantify it for them. For us to win both throwing events and then get second in shot and fourth in the discus to go along with it, I mean I don’t have words but I’m pretty stoked about it,” Freeman said. “They’re such a dedicated group that doesn’t get seen that much. For them to work their butts off and come out here and basically dominate the throwing at the sectional is just as huge for us as it is for them. They should be walking with their heads held high and be super proud because people need to know how big of a deal it is.” Springs Valley also got a huge performance from Sophie Harris. The sophomore took the track for the 3200-meter run and put down an historic performance. Her second-place time of 12:24.26 wasn't just a personal record and it wasn't just a school record. It was 38 seconds faster than Harris's previous school record, an outrageous improvement that came less than a month after she initially broke Hannah Freeman's record set in 2002. She started strong, finished strong, and showed exactly how much she's benefitted from her training. “It comes from her heart. She’s such a worker. People see Alan (Marshall), people see Grant (Brown), people see Carson (Brown), people see those boys distance runners, but they don’t see Sophie running with a group of boys because that’s her ability level. People don’t see Sophie on long runs taking her dad out and making him run four miles or five miles or six miles with her and talking about form and cadence and things like that the whole time. They don’t see that Sophie spent the entire fall working on her diet and getting her body right because she wants to be great,” Freeman said. “For her as a sophomore to do that, it’s unbelievable. I’m proud of her because she works so stinking hard and I think she gets overlooked a lot. For her to have the spotlight on her for a little bit, I love it. It needs to shine brightly on her as much as it possibly can.” Drabing, Meehan, and Harris aren't the only Blackhawks heading to regional competition. They'll be joined by Miya Campbell, who got a callback after finishing fourth in the long jump, and Macy Hall, who got a callback after finishing sixth in the high jump. Brynne Buchanan also qualified for regionals by placing third in the 100-meter hurdles with a personal-record time of 17.31 seconds, but will not participate due to a conflicting sectional softball game. With Drabing, Hall, and Buchanan all qualifying, it meant that each and every one of Springs Valley's seniors made the cut and got to leave Seymour happy: an exciting development for the Blackhawks. “I’m over the moon. I didn’t want to have to say goodbye, but you know Brynne has an important softball game to play on Tuesday and we understand that. It would have been so much fun to have all three of them at regionals, but for her to run a PR and get third and know that she qualified individually was just so awesome for her. It’s that cherry on top of her career,” Freeman said. “Macy and Sarah put in so much and I know that Macy’s chasing those higher heights, but she’s doing it with hamstrings that are hurting. She’s going to keep working though. Sarah’s fierce. She’s determined. I could go on about the three of them all day, but the sky’s the limit for these girls and Sarah saw a glimpse of what she’s capable of. I think next week will be even better and it was great to see those three girls leave here with a smile on their faces.” Next up for the Blackhawks is a trip to the Bloomington North Regional on Tuesday, May 23. There the competition will only get tougher with large-school foes from Bloomington and Terre Haute, among other places, entering the fray. As they take on the likes of Bloomington North, Bloomington South, and others, Freeman will look to them to compete the same way they did at Seymour. “We can’t back down. I don’t care what color their jersey is, I don’t care what accomplishments they have, they all put their uniform on and go to practice and go to school the same as we do,” Freeman said. “They might have better facilities, they might have a school that throws more money at it, but I’ll take our girls’ heart and work ethic over anything.”