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The Lady Pioneer sophomore smashed two long-standing meet records, earned a third individual first-place finish, and ran a leg on a silver medal-winning relay last Thursday to lead her team to the championship at the 34th Annual Sanilac County News Track & Field Meet.

Cros-Lex scored 144 points to slip by gallant efforts from Deckerville with 134 and Marlette with 121 to win its 11th straight County Meet title.

Three of the Lady Pioneers' six firsts came from O'Connor, who was handed the Purl Wark Award for Female Athlete of the Meet. The sophomore strode to record-breaking wins in the 1600 meter run in 5:23.87 (old mark was 5:26.3) and the 800 run in 2:21.37 (old record, 2:24.1). Both previous records were set by Sandusky's Brenda Essenmacher in 1982. Just two years ago, C-L's Chelsea McVay snapped Essenmacher's County record in the 3200 run.

Lisa Shaw, the Cros-Lex girls coach, marveled at O'Connor's performance.

"The thing is, everybody (on our team) was a little tired because we ran in the league meet on Tuesday. (Leah) came back in two days to do this, and it's not like it was a cakewalk.

"Twenty-six years..." added Shaw on snapping the long-standing records, "I've had some great runners before, but to see that done Ð wow!"

O'Connor also won the 3200 (12:15.42) and joined Brittany Yelinek, Kristina Elkins and Erin Lamb on the second place 1600 relay team.

The Lady Pioneers still needed more than O'Connor's feats to hold off Deckerville and Marlette. Lamb, a senior, won the 100 (13.28) and 200 (27.56) meter dashes in near-personal bests after coming back from an injury. Yelinek, another sophomore, had the other Cros-Lex first, winning the 400 meter dash (1:03.77).

"We knew it would be tight. I was actually really nervous about this," said Shaw. She noted that many others helped keep the County title at Cros-Lex. "It's not always won by first place finishes, but it's those extra points you get along the way... we had a lot of people work hard."

The Lady Pioneers also did not want to relinquish the trophy. Shaw commented, "We're happy when other teams do well. But, we've won this 10 years in a row and I didn't want to see these kids have to feel like they let us down."

Deckerville, which will be taking 10 athletes to the Division 4 State Finals this weekend, had an impressive showing with five firsts.

Sophomore Shelby McVittie was involved in four of those gold-medal-winning performances. She won the 100 meter hurdles (17.11) and the 300 hurdles( 49.19) and was on the winning 3200 (10:22.35) and 1600 meter relay (4:17.73) teams. She was joined by Dana Stolicker, Ashley Szymanski and Cheyenne Sampson on the 3200 squad and by Stolicker, Mandy Nichol and Katelyn Stutterheim on the1600.

Meanwhile, senior Sarah Thayer won the pole vault for the Lady Eagles with a personal-best effort of 8'3". Deckerville also had eight other second and third place finishes, including Stolicker's efforts in the 400 (2nd) and 800 (3rd).

Randee Kirkpatrick, Deckerville coach, said her team went all out to end the Cros-Lex reign.

"We wanted to win so badly, but came up a little short ," she said. "They have nothing to be ashamed of, though, because Cros-Lex is a great team. I know the girls were disappointed, but I couldn't have been more proud of them."

The Lady Eagles had also ran on Tuesday at the Huron County Meet.

The Lady Raiders of Marlette turned in four first place finishes. Freshman Angela Odoerfer won the long jump with a personal-best of 15'8" and junior Amber Wood took the gold in the discus with a throw of 99'5". The 800 and 400 relay teams were victorious for Marlette. Odoerfer joined Kristina Fingerle, Amara Wilson and Keagan Wilson on the 800 (1:55.87) unit and the Wilson sisters and Alex Willis on the 400 (53.55) squad. Both times were the best this season. The Lady Raiders scored a total of 32 points in the two throwing events with Amara Wilson placing third in the shot put and second in the discus.

Sandusky's Marissa DeMott and CPS's Nichole Storm claimed the other two firsts in the meet. DeMott, a sophomore, won the high jump with a leap of 5' and Storm, a junior, won the shot put with an effort of 32'5".

Among those that placed in the top six, county athletes turned in 35 personal-bests in the girls competition Thursday at Marlette High School.