For the first time in quite a few years, Northwestern won’t be sending any of its track and field athletes to the state meet that begins on Friday at Shippensburg University.

But that isn’t to say a number of Tigers didn’t have successful seasons this spring.

A number of boys and girls sporting the black and gold ended their seasons on a positive note, despite bumping up to the Class 3A field in districts to compete against many schools that have much higher enrollments.

Plenty of Tigers were very close to finishing in the top four of their respective events, which would have earned them a medal.

Molly Tarvin (3,200-meter run), Emily Renner (400-meter dash) and Trevor Cunningham (300-meter hurdles) all came in fifth place at last week’s District 11 Class 3A Track and Field Championships at Whitehall High School.

Cunningham finished in 41.06 seconds in the 300-meter hurdles. East Stroudsburg’s Changa Hodge and Job Goodman of Wilson placed first and second, respectively, to punch their tickets to states.

“It was really tough running with them,” said Cunningham. “I’m just glad I was able to do so well against those schools.”

What makes it even more impressive is the fact that Cunningham only recently picked up running this hurdles event.

“I just started this event part way through the season,” Cunningham said. “I would have liked to do better but I was pleased how I finished only training for a couple weeks.”

So, with just a few weeks of preparation in the event, Cunningham hoped to merely stick with the other competitors, some of whom are from the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference and have been competing in the event for years.

“I just wanted to improve my time and seed,” Cunningham said. “I knew that I would be pushed running against good athletes and that would lead to a good finish.

“I felt like I came out a little slow again, but I was able to keep up and they pushed me hard.”

Renner’s time of 1:00.52 was just .03 off Parkland medalist Emily Willcox. And she was a mere 1.50 seconds from qualifying for states.

Tarvin, a week after earning gold in the Colonial League Meet in 11:37.61, improved her time by nearly four seconds when she finished the 3200 in 11:33.78. Tarvin, along with Maddie Consuelos, Abigail Supplee and Hannah Herzon, placed seventh in the 3,200-meter relay in 10:00.32.

Tiger senior David VanBlargan made a name for himself in the pole vault event as well, placing sixth with a height of 12 feet, nine inches. There was a four-way tie at 13 feet, nine inches for the top spot in Class 3A, but Parkland’s Cole Boychuck cleared the mark on the earliest jump to earn gold.

“I thought we did really well as a team,” Cunningham said. “We weren’t expecting to beat some of the teams we did. I was happy with my performances, as well as a lot of my other teammates.”