It was a historic weekend for Amberson Bauer and the Riverview Track and Field Program at the PIAA state championship in Shippensburg. Amby highlighted a group of 13 athletes in 6 different events, as he won the State Championship in the 800 meter run in a dominating performance. Amby’s 1:54.93 was a full 1.3 seconds faster than 2nd place finisher Zane Cassell from Greenwood. Amby’s gold was Riverview’s first PIAA title since 2013 (Tyler Murphy 300H) and only the third in school history. The gold was the 2nd medal of the weekend for Amby, as on Friday he placed 4th in the 1600 with a time of 4:17.05, breaking his own school record set at last week’s WPIAL gold medal performance, by over 4 seconds.
The Raiders had 2 other individual participants: Sr. Alexandria Bibza kicked off the weekend for the Raiders with an 18th place finish in the Discus (105-6). Alex finished her career as one of Riverview’s most accomplished girl throwers in school history.
Sophomore Chris Barnes also earned a top 20 individual finish. His 3200 time of 9:43. 94 (20th place) was the fastest Raider time since Greg Wagner’s school record and state medal performance of 9:35 in 2013. Christopher’s time beat older brother Ben’s best PIAA meet time of 10:00.4 in 2018.
The Raiders also had 2 relay teams make the meet, both grabbing the 20th spot: On Friday, the girls 4x4 (Jonisha Carlino, Cailey Trosch, Katerina Tsambis and Lola Abraham) registered a 4:17.36. On Saturday, the Boys 4x800 (Holden Deasy, Cohen Hoolahan, Micah Ivy and Chris Barnes) ran 8:32.66 to finish 7th in their heat and 20th overall.
The six top 20 performances are the most in school history at the State Championship. There are 310 schools in PIAA-AA.
Congratulations to all Raider Track and Field athletes on an excellent 2023 season.