Moon Area High School track coach Nick Bulat remembers when Layne Baggett joined the team as a ninth grader.

She was talented, but also shy.

"She didn't talk much that first year," he said. "You'd talk to her and about all you would get was 'Yes' and 'No' and 'We'll see.' That was about it.

"She's a lot more open than that now."

On the track, Baggett allows her actions to do her talking.

In two years, she has developed into one of the premier hurdlers in the WPIAL.

A junior, she has won the 100-meter hurdles at the WPIAL Class AAA championships the past two seasons. She will be going after a third consecutive gold medal in that event today at Baldwin High School Stadium. A victory today would set her up to go after an unprecedented fourth first-place finish in the 100 hurdles next year.

Winning a third title won't be easy. Baggett is seeded third with a time of 14.94 seconds behind Thomika Acie of McKeesport (14.89) and Liz Kline of Upper St. Clair (14.98). But seeded times from qualifiers are not always a true representation of who the favorite is in an event.

Baggett has run the fastest time in the WPIAL in the 100 hurdles this season, finishing in 14.7. She won the event at the prestigious Baldwin Invitational two weeks ago, beating Kline, Acie and Christa Rogers of Quaker Valley, the WPIAL Class AA champion, in the process.

"It seems like I've been running them forever," she said with a grin after winning the 100-meter hurdles in a meet-record time at the Midwestern Athletic Conference championships at Mars last month.

"I love running them more than any other race. I just like the rush you get in running them."

The 100 hurdles isn't the only event in which Baggett will compete today at the WPIAL championships. She will also run the 300-meter intermediate hurdles, in which she is seeded fourth behind West Allegheny's Kristen Lang, Kline and North Allegheny's Cody McCoy, as well as legs on Moon's 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams.

In short, she'll be busy but running four events isn't new to Baggett. She has done that most of the season.

What's interesting is that Baggett doesn't appear particularly fast while running the 100-meter hurdles. She gets out of the blocks well, but her starts wouldn't be classified as explosive. She is fast, but observers are more impressed with her grace and smooth hurdling style.

"She is fast. We've used her in the 100 and 200 before," Bulat said. "She ran the anchor leg on our 400 relay at the qualifiers last week and was in third or fourth place when she got the baton and beat everybody to the finish."

Speed helps, but Baggett has that extra gear that separates the good hurdlers from the great ones.

"She gets out of the blocks with everyone else," Bulat said. "But when she gets to the second or third hurdle is when she really starts to accelerate and pull away."

While the 300 intermediate hurdles are not her favorite race, she does well in them. Baggett was fourth in the intermediates at the WPIAL meet last year and eighth at the PIAA championships.

"I try hard [in the 300 intermediates]. That's not really my thing. I have to think too much when I run them," said Baggett, who was third in the 100 hurdles at the PIAA meet last year. "I can't hurdle with my left leg, so I have to count steps [between hurdles]."

Bulat said Baggett is getting better at running longer distances. He said as a freshman she thought the 300 intermediate hurdlers was a marathon.

"It's hard to say what might be her best event down the road," he said. "It might be the intermediate hurdles because she has run them in 45 [seconds]. It might be the 400 because she's pretty good at that."

While Baggett should qualify for the PIAA championships in both hurdle events, she hopes at least one of the relays will earn a trip to Shippensburg.

Bulat said the 400 relay with Shequante Devonshire, Zoey Cook, Alexis Thomas and Baggett has a good chance. It is seeded fourth behind Penn Hills, Mt. Lebanon and West Mifflin.

The 1,600 relay that includes Baggett, Thomas, Paige Bedner and Tara Logut has a shot at placing in the top eight today.

"The thing about the 400 relay is that Layne is a junior and the other three are ninth graders," Bulat said. "They are all pretty quick and if they hit their handoffs ..."

Baggett hasn't yet started looking into colleges, but does know she wants to go someplace warm, "like [in the] South or to California," she said.

She likes to set goals for herself. It's part of the competitiveness that makes her tough to beat in the 100-meter hurdles.

"I do have the stadium records at my school hanging up in my locker," she said.

After today, she could have three WPIAL gold medals hanging somewhere in her house.