John Raffel
Sports Scene
Amber Gall has been achieving plenty of impressive feats in her sophomore season with Shepherd’s track and field team.
Coach Carey Hammel has been more impressed with Gall than anyone.
“She’s having a great season,” Hammel said. “A couple of weeks ago in a dual meet, she ran a personal best time in the 800, which was also a new school record. It was held since 1980. To break a record that had stood at Shepherd that long was very impressive.”
Through mid-May, she was undefeated in both the 800-meter run with a personal record of 2:14.83 in her first meet on April 19. She was 6-0 in the 1,600-meter run and had a personal record of 5:01.04 in the Alma College Scottie Classic. She was 4-1 in the 3,200 meter run with her only loss coming at the Shepherd Bluejay Invitational despite a personal record of 10:41.68. Her time broke a school record that was set in 1978. She has also done well in the 1,600 and 3,200 relays.
“As a sophomore, it just shows how hard she works, and she’s definitely a super athlete,” Hammel said. “Last year, her best time in the 800 was 2:17, so she’s a couple of seconds faster there. Her best mile was a 5:10 and she’s gone 5:05. In the 3,200, she’s about 11 seconds faster. It’s been a lot of hard work and she had a great summer. She’s shown some big improvement.”
The 3,200 relay team won at the Alma College Scottie Classic in 9:29.84 and included Gall, Katelyn Hutchinson, Rachel Mathers and Kylie Hutchinson.
Hammel wants to see Gall continue to improve the rest of the season and see what she can accomplish. “The team’s doing really good,” Hammel said. “We’ve done some pretty good events. We’ve got a solid team all the way around. We’re pretty excited.”