North Allegheny High School track coach John Neff knew his girls' team had a good day at the Tri-State Track Coaches Association championships Saturday at West Mifflin; he just didn't know how good.

"We were on the bus getting ready to leave when they made the announcement, 'Will somebody from North Allegheny come claim the championship trophy,'" Neff said.

"We didn't even have the entire team at the meet, although we did have most of the key members."

Lake Fong, Post-Gazette North Allegheny's Kelly Langhans set a record in the 400 at the Tri-State Track Coaches meet Click photo for larger image.

North Allegheny won the girls' team title with 63 points to Norwin's 53. The Tigers captured four first places and set a couple of meet records in the process.

Leading the way was senior Kelly Langhans, who won the 400-meter dash in a meet-record time of 57.81 seconds and teamed with freshman Annie McCarthy and sophomores Cody McCoy and Molly Antimarino to win the 1,600-meter relay in a meet-record time of 4:04.96.

"That was a pretty good time for the four-by-four relay for this early in the season. Of course, it helps when you have somebody like Kelly on it," Neff said.

"We're going to take that relay [team] to the Penn Relays [at the end of the month] and see what it can do there."

The other winners for North Allegheny were Jade Hambrick in the shot put at 39 feet, 2 3/4 inches and Sydney Schwab in the javelin with a throw of 121-9. McCoy was second in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles and Kristen Zeleznik was third in the pole vault, clearing 10 feet.

Langhans, who will run track at Notre Dame next year, was the team's MVP for the meet. She is off to an outstanding start to the season and is looking to take her times in the 400 under 56 seconds.

That would be an exceptional accomplishment since only six WPIAL runners have cracked the 56-second barrier in the 400. The fastest time in the 400 by a WPIAL runner is 55.07 set by Candy Young of Beaver Falls in 1980.

Langhans is seventh on the all-time 400 list with a 56.21 she ran last year. She did some different things to get ready for this season.

"The workouts I did over the winter were mostly distance-based," she said. "I wanted to build a good base and I think it's going to help.

"It wasn't so much going out and running miles as it was just running for a certain period of time. I'd just go run for like 45 minutes a day."

The long runs seemed to help. During the indoor season, Langhans won the 400 at the Tri-State Track Coaches Association championships at Slippery Rock University with a time of 59.68. She then placed 10th in 58.85 at the Pennsylvania Track and Field Coaches Association championships at Penn State.

It should be pointed out that for indoor track there are no classifications, so she was going against the best in the state.

"[Langhans] had a really good indoor season and has just picked it up from there," Neff said. "She's one of those who works really, really hard at getting better."

Last year, Langhans was second in the 400 at the WPIAL Class AAA championships in 57.37 and third at the PIAA finals in 56.41.

She wants to improve on both of those places this spring. She also competes in the 200 and 800 for the Tigers.

Setting a meet record in the 400 has given her confidence a boost. She was surprised by her time at the Tri-State championships at West Mifflin.

"I didn't think I was going that fast," she said. "My indoor season was good, but I'm hoping to do even better outdoors."