May 21, 2018 By Eleanor Bailey almanac Sports Editor ebailey@thealmanac.Net 4 min read

Because timing is everything for Savannah Shaw, the Upper St. Clair senior runs with a Garmin watch wrapped around her left wrist.

“I don’t have the fancy one so it’s not that crazy,” she said. “It tells me what my time is typically and what mile pace I’m currently running, which is really helpful. It’s kind of necessary in these races.”

Indeed, the WPIAL Class AAA track and field championships held May 17 at Baldwin were typical of Shaw’s races this spring. There was no competition in front of her and the rest of the field lagged yards behind as Shaw repeated as the 1,600-meter champion. Her gold-medal time of 4:50.95 was nearly 10 seconds faster than the second-place mark of 5:01.86 submitted by Clara Savhick from North Allegheny.

“There wasn’t a ton of pressure on me to repeat because I was pretty far from the rest of the field and I felt pretty confident in my ability to take it, but I think for me it was mostly a timing thing. Trying to get the time I was looking for,” she said.

That’s where the watch comes in for Shaw. The timing piece pushes her when the competition cannot.

Shaw strategically places her friends around the oval course for motivational purposes, too. In addition to cheering her on, they are telling her to go faster throughout the race so she can have something propelling her toward the finish line.

“It is really tough to be out there by yourself cause it’s easy to slow down without knowing it when you can’t see someone ahead or feel someone behind you,” Shaw explained. So it’s a lot of hearing my time, checking my pace and getting my teammates telling me ‘you’ve got to keep going’ and then I’m like ‘yeah, yeah, I can go faster.’ “

Since winning the WPIAL title last spring, Shaw has gone five seconds faster in winning the metric mile. She says that it feels really good to progress like that, going from 4:55 to 4:50 but she missed the thrill of winning by a close margin.

“Last year, I think was a bigger win because it was a lot more like a battle. It was tighter. This one was a bit different because I knew it wasn’t going to be as stressful and it was me going out there by myself,” she said. “But it is really special to me to break my time.”

This week, Shaw is looking to lower her time as she competes for the gold during the state finals. The PIAA track and field championships are set for May 25-26 at Shippensburg University.

“The focus is to win gold at states,” she said. “I’m definitely going for that No. 1 and going for a sub 4:50. I’ve hit 4:50 a couple of times right on the dot and I’m just looking to get under that a little bit. That’s really my goal. I’m really hoping to do that. One or hopefully both.”

Shaw will not have a shot at the 800. She finished sixth in the race at the WPIAL finals with a 2:17.59 time but has scratched from that event at states to focus on the 1,600.

“I’m only looking to do the mile at states so just getting a good time for the eight was what I was looking for. It’s really tough to do the mile and the eight especially without the pace so while I wasn’t happy with 2:18, sixth overall was pretty good. It was nice.”

Nice for Shaw is that she is not making the trip to Shippensburg alone.

By virtue of their WPIAL performances, Jane Madson and Issac Kane qualified for the PIAA championships.

Madson grabbed the bronze medal in the 100-meter dash (12:47) and secured the silver in the 200 (24.89).

Sisters Hayden and Hunter Robinson from Avonworth/Northgate won thoses events in 11.92 and 23.93 respectively. Hunter also claimed the gold in the 400. The siblings also were part of the winning 400 and 1,600 relay teams.

Meanwhile, Kane was runner-up in the 400-meter dash. The sophomore clocked in at 49.73, a shade behind West Mifflin’s Ziggy Patterson, who won the race in 49.05.

Though they did not qualify for states, CJ Hess and Khalil Jackson earned medals for the Panthers at the WPIAL championships. Hess was eighth in the 800 meters and Jackson tied for eighth place in the high jump.