Shippee, Culver Setting Standards in County

As the county's track and field athletes move on to intercounty competition this week, the iBerkshires.com Athletes of the Week figure to be among those carrying the county's banner high in the post-season.

 

Lenox junior Alice Culver has the county's best times this spring in three events, the 800 meters, 1600 meters and 3200 meters.

 

Her first-place time in the two-mile run at Saturday's Berkshire County Individuals meet, 11 minutes, 34.14 seconds, would have been good for second place in the Division 5 State Championship last spring, where she placed seventh as a sophomore (11:46.39).

 

Culver also last spring ran on Lenox's 4-by-800 relay quartet, which finished eighth in Division 5 with a time of 10:40.96.

 

On Saturday at Hoosac Valley, Culver, Elyssa Scrimo, Genevieve Collins and Savannah Reber ran a time of 10:34.91 to win the event at the BCI meet.

 

Wahconah will be heading to the Division 6 state meet in a couple of weeks at Westfield State University.

 

Last year at the meet, Wahconah junior Payton Shippee medaled in the javelin with a seventh-place throw of 138 feet, 4 inches.

 

On Saturday at the BCI, he increased his county best mark in that event to 160-10, a distance that would have won the event a year ago at the state meet.

 

Also on Saturday, Shippee was one of two boys (Mount Greylock's Chase Doyle was the other) to win a pair of events at the county season-ender.

 

Shippee took the discus title by six feet with a throw of 141-19, less than his season-best mark of 148-0.5 set on April 29 at Williams College.

 

Last year at the D6 meet, Shippee was 12th in the discus. A mark of 148-0.5 would have been good for sixth in the field at the state meet.

 

Before the county's track stars head to their respective state meets on May 25 and 27, they will have one chance to shine at the Western Mass meet on Friday at Mohawk Trail Regional High School.