Gary Dudgeon
Last week, we profiled the three girls who were their respective school’s Athlete of the Spring. They were Kendra Fasbinder, a track and field athlete who ran three events for Coach Betsy Davis at North Decatur; Keighlea Owens, the shortstop and leading hitter for Coach Lisa Huff’s softball team at South Decatur and Erica Schwering, a track-and-field athlete who threw the shot and discus under the watchful eye of Dave Jackson and Troy Davis, coaches of the Greensburg Track team.
Despite a .579 batting average posted by Owens, the choice of the Female Athlete of the Spring boiled down to the two track-and-field stars. Both girls appeared in state competition, both girls were seeded in the top-20 competitors in their individual specialties and both girls acquitted themselves well at state.
Fasbinder runs the 100-meter hurdles as well as the 4X100 relay and jumps the long jump. She qualified on time in the hurdles and ran well in her heat despite an injury that occurred an hour before her call. Still she answered the call and was hitting her marks until she appeared to tweak the injury near the halfway point. Despite having to finish the heat with the injury, she finished 20th in the field of 27.
Schwering qualified for the state meet by finishing second at the Shelbyville Regional meet when Katy Watson of Center Grove threw 41’5” on her final throw, the first time all season that Schwering did not place first in the shot. Her distance gave her the 11th seed at state, which required her to beat two of the competitors ahead of her and out-throw the higher seeds to qualify for the finals.
She improved her distance from the regional meet and out-threw several lower seeds, including Watson, to secure ninth place in the competition and win an All-State designation for her finish. The throw also qualified her to participate in the Midwest Meet of Champions in Jackson, Mich., on June 13. At Jackson she placed sixth overall with Indiana claiming three of the top six finishes.
Schwering, who graduated from Greensburg, will attend Indiana Tech in Fort Wayne next fall where she will continue her training in the shot put and the discus. The school will begins its foray into women’s track and field competition. As a testament to her skills, the school officials noted they will build their program around the throwing prowess of Schwering.
In invitational and dual meet competition, she placed first every time in the shot put and placed second just twice in the discus. She capped the season by making All-State in the shot put and finishing sixth in the Midwest meet.
For these accomplishments and her desire for further training, the Daily News is proud to recognize Erica Schwering as its female Athlete of the Spring.
