Avon’s Funderburk takes second in 3,200 meters at Class M meet

Avon High sophomore Laura Funderburk ran a personal-best time in the 3,200 meters to finish second at Saturday’s Class M indoor track and field championship meet at the Floyd Little Athletic Center on the Hillhouse High campus.

Funderburk helped Avon finish in 11th place with 18 points – their best showing at the state championship meets since finishing fifth in Class L in 2018.

Funderburk also ran on Avon’s 4×800 relay team that finished fourth. Avon’s 1,600-meter sprint medley relay team finished third.

In the 3,200 meters, Funderburk finished with a time of 12:08.48, just ahead of Mercy’s Clara Romero, who finished third in 12:09.39. RHAM’s Isabelle Mondo won the race in 11:59.24.

Funderburk becomes the seventh Avon High girls athlete to finish second in a CIAC indoor track and field meet. The Falcons are still waiting for their first state title from a girl in indoor track.

The sprint medley relay, which consists of legs of 200, 200, 400 and 800 meters, had a season-best time of 4:30.06 with the Falcons just finishing ahead of Mercy (4:30.29). Avon wasn’t far behind second place Waterford (4:30.00). Hillhouse won the race in 4:29.29.

Natalie Ith, Julia Freeman, Kathryn Mrtin and Ying Ying Cheng ran the race for Avon, securing a spot in the Saturday’s State Open championship and coming just 1.2 seconds off the school record in the event.

In the 4×800 meters, it was Funderburk, Ava Keleher, Miriae Ek and Cheng running for the Falcons and finishing with a season-best time of 10.31.44. Cheng cut eight seconds off her best time of the season in the 800 to help the team.

Sara Trautman had a personal-best time of 5:40.30 to finish eighth in the 1,600 meters while the Avon 4×200 relay team (Natalie Ith, Lauren Edge, Hannah Witting, Kathryn Martin) finished eighth with a time of 15:38.0. The team had been seeded 13^th.

Another top 10 finish came from Avon’s 4×400 relay team (Yasmin Rensch, Trautman, Cheng and Martin) with a time of 4:26.74.

The Avon boys also competed in Class M but didn’t score any points.

The Canton boys and girls competed in the Class S championships earlier this week and didn’t score any points. The top finishers for the Warriors were Ava Dakin, who was 13th in the 1,000 meters with a time of 3:24.79 and Lyla O’Connor, who was 14th in the shot with a throw of 29-9½ feet.