2005 Union County Girls Indoor Track

Westfield High School seniors Annie Onishi and Emily MacNeil were not going to let fatigue get in the way of concluding their indoor county track careers with a flourish. With each running their third
event of the evening over the rock hard Dunn Center surface, they combined with sophomore Erin McCarthy and junior Miriam Becker-Cohen to win the concluding mile relay and enable to the Blue Devils to defend their team title with 45 points Monday night in Elizabeth.

Westfield was able to outlast Rahway and their superstar La’Shonda Carter, who won three individual events, scoring thirty of Rahway’s 41 points on her own. Four weeks ago at the same venue the Blue Devils had won the Union County Relays with many of the same cast of characters. Monday’s triumph concluded a dominant streak of major wins. The quartet, with Meg Driscoll replacing McCarthy had also won the Group III four by 800 relay and MacNeil also won the Group III individual 800 but on this night it was Onishi sharing center stage with her more celebrated teammate.

“Annie was amazing tonight,” exulted Coach Jen Buccino.
“It was not easy doing all those events but Annie knew how important her points would be towards winning the team title, so she hung in there.”

Onishi’s night started in the mile where she stayed close to the leaders before holding on for a third and six points. After MacNeil picked up a second place in the 440, the two were back in the 880, where MacNeil cruised to an easy 2:31 victory the fourth straight 880 yard title in her brilliant career. Onishi picked up six more crucial points by hanging in for third in 2:34.2. At that point Westfield and Rahway were tied with 30 points each.

Carter’s victory in the high jump brought Rahway to 40 points but
with Emily Perry adding a third in the high jump and Jen Danielson a sixth in the two mile to bring Westfield to 35 points, Buccino figured if the mile relay could finish first it might be enough to put the Blue Devils over the top.

“I was confident that our girls had enough left to finish first,” said Buccino.
“Our relay runners are a real team. Everybody knows their role and what they need to do.”

MacNeil led off with a powerful 65.3-second split that gave Becker-Cohen a healthy lead, which she held on to and handed off to. McCarthy.
Onishi had a small lead as she took the baton and was able to hold off her competition to win her heat with a 65.7 split. The time of 4:25.1 held up as the fastest over the two heats.


“I’m very happy for the seniors,” said Buccino.
“They were determined to go out on a positive note tonight.”

Led by senior Mary Shashaty, Scotch Plains finished with fifth with 22 points. Shashaty was second behind Cranford sophomore Lindsay Gallo in the two mile that was inadvertently shortened by one lap, when the officials miscounted the laps. The runners wound up running 110 yards less than
normal.

When they rang the bell, for the final lap I started yelling at them that they rang it one lap too early ,” said Scotch Plains Coach Jeff Koegel.
“Of course, I got ignored by everyone standing at the finish line.”

In addition to Shashaty’s eight points, sophomore Sam Gates was third in the 400 and also anchored the mile relay to a third place finish, which helped Westfield by their finishing ahead of Rahway. The Raiders’ other two points came from a fifth place finish in the shot put from Kat Berka.