Indoor ThrowDown
Monique Hardy - Webster Thomas
The Indoor ThrowDown combines the best marks from the shot put and weight throw from the winter season. Going into the contest, the big question was whether the top weight throwers such as Monique Hardy, Warsaw's Madison Offhaus, and Lancaster freshman Natalia Surdej could put in enough of a gap with 50+ foot heaves in their specialty to overcome the lack of a 40+ foot toss in the shot put.
Six throwers including shot put state champ Rachel Donner of Iroquois went over the 40 foot mark during the indoor season, but only four were able to go past the 40 foot mark in the weight throw, and only Donner and Bayport-Blue Point's Ashley Walsh were at 42 feet or better in both events. It should also be noted that some of the top throwers of the outdoor season were absent from the Indoor ThrowDown, maybe because their school did not have an indoor team or possibly that they wanted to score a 1000th career point for their school's basketball team (that's you, Ms. Morillo).
Madison Offhaus - Warsaw
In the end, it was the WT specialists who earned the gold and silver, as Hardy with by far the best weight throw with a 56-1.25 toss that was recorded at the Section 5 State Qualifier and Offhaus with the second best WT mark both topped the 1500 score even though they were at the back of the top 10 in the shot put. Walsh's solid WT throw moved her ahead of Donner for the bronze ring, and Sarah Crockett of Rome Free Academy with the 4th best weight throw and 6th best shot put took 5th ahead of Surdej.
Ashley Walsh - Bayport-Blue Point
Seventeen of the 20 athletes pulled in more points in the weight throw than in the shot put, but only one of the 20 made the list with a shot distance that was outside the top 35 in the event. But Juel Charles and Ashley Bosco who were #2 and #3 in the shot put still finished 17th and 18th in the Indoor ThrowDown, so the power of the WT is clear.
