Phillips Qualifies for 800 Meter Final at Class 2A State Meet

Shayna Phillips will be Effingham High School's lone representative in tomorrow's IHSA Class 2A track and field state finals following the results of this morning's preliminary round at Eastern Illinois University's O'Brien Stadium.

Phillips, a senior at EHS, qualified in the 800 meter run with a time of 2 minutes, 19.67 seconds; that was good for fourth place in her heat and ninth out of 12 finalists. The top prelim time belonged to Karina Liz of Aurora Central Catholic at 2:15.21.

Junior Camryn Heuerman competed in the 100 meter high hurdles and posted a time of 16.83 seconds, which came up a bit short of qualifying for the Saturday final. The field was looking up at Imani Carothers, a sophomore from Chicago Brooks, who turned in a time of 14.37.

Effingham's third and final entry in the preliminary round was its 1600 meter relay team of S. Phillips, Miranda Fox, Kaylee Phillips and Kiyah Kuhlman. Their time of 4:06.80 was fifth in their heat and 1.58 seconds better than their sectional run, but unfortunately not among the nine Saturday finalists. Dunlap will be the team to beat in that event after qualifying in 3:58.93.

According to the tentative schedule for tomorrow's events, Phillips is slated to run her 800 meter final just after 2 p.m.