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Saturday, May 18, 2002

Not back for seconds

City's Funk wins 3,000 but West leads in points

By Andy Hamilton
Iowa City Press-Citizen

City High's distance ace thought about last year's state track meet when she was 100 meters from becoming the state champion in the 3,000. With the finish line in sight, Funk came through a pack of lapped runners. So did Des Moines Roosevelt's Casey Owens, who passed Funk and won the race.

"That race is so fresh in my mind," said Funk, who admitted she thought Owens was one of the lapped runners at first. "It's almost like yesterday. I remember it exactly. I learned a big lesson that day and that was to never think I had the race won at any point in the race."

Funk could've relaxed for the final few meters Friday. She held a comfortable lead when she crossed the finish line in the 3,000 to become an individual state champion for the first time.

Funk said she thought her name was becoming synonymous with second place before winning the 3,000 at the Drake Relays in April. She's quickly changing her reputation.

"I'll probably never be satisfied until I win everything I run. And that could be awhile," Funk said. "This has helped my confidence a lot and I need to drop that second-place reputation."

Though Funk gave the Little Hawks their first victory of the state meet, West High felt as if it came out a winner after the 3,000.

The Women of Troy scored 10 of their meet-leading 18 points in the 3,000, thanks to Robdu Adam and Jeni Frudden, who finished second and third, respectively.

"We're not dumb," West coach Mike Parker said. "We've led after day one before and not won championships. Last year we were behind after day one and won the championship. I'm not marking anything up."

Heavy favorite City is second with 14 points.

Mount Pleasant upstaged the two track superpowers Friday, beating West and City to take the distance medley relay. The Panthers got a magnificent 2:12.2 anchor leg from Allison Warner to beat the best time in West history.

Amanda Judisch, Liz Huntley, Lindsey Windauer and Lynn Dobyns broke a school record for the Women of Troy while finishing second in 4:07.23.

Dobyns broke to the front of a pack of four runners and held the lead momentarily before Warner gave Mount Pleasant the victory.

"All I could think about was how I was boxed in between City and Mount Pleasant and I knew I had to get around them sometime," Dobyns said. "

City's squad of Ashton Strickland, Camille Jordan, Katie Krei and Meggan Reed finished third in 4:09.82.

The Little Hawks' hopes of piling up points in each of the seven relays ended when they were disqualified for an illegal exchange in the 4x200 preliminaries.

"We set ourselves up nicely," Funk said. "The 4x2 got disqualified, however, and that was a little bit of a disappointment, but we'll learn from that. Things are never going to go as exactly as you planned."

Perhaps no one knows that better than Frudden, who planned on going out with a bang in her final high school meet before a hip injury cut out nearly a month of training. She finished in 10:24.72 in the 3,000 Friday.

"You just don't understand what she had to go through to get third place," Parker said. "She's not above getting excited about third place. You've got to love somebody like that."

Parker said the strategy for the Women of Troy was to have Adam go all-out and try to finish second, while having Frudden try to conserve energy and place third. Frudden will try to bounce back today in the 1,500 and 4x800 relay, while Adam's state meet was finished after running the best 3,000 of her career.

Adam, a junior who moved to West from Ethiopia as a freshman, ran a career-best 10:22.75.

"For whatever reason, she just loves state championships," Parker said. "She always comes through for us at state."

Part of the reason for Adam's success Friday was the weather. A sunny day with temperatures in the low-60s helped, according to Parker.

"This is what my country is like," Adam said.

City's Betsy Ellsmore finished 12th in the 3,000. The Little Hawks also got a ninth-place finish from Jessica Elliott in the discus.

City advanced to the finals of the shuttle hurdle relay, 4x100 and 4x400. Maya Monitto-Webber reached the finals of the 100 hurdles and Monica Mims capped her brilliant day by anchoring the Little Hawks past Dobyns and the Women of Troy in their preliminary heat of the 4x400. City and West finished with the top two times in the event.

Mims also posted the fastest preliminary time in the 400, winning her heat in a personal-best 58.38.

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