While the weather in Pennsylvania was less than ideal in the first official weekend of outdoor track and field, one solution would be to go where the weather is great for late March.
That's exactly what Liz Simms of Butler did and she came away with an early-season state-leading time in the 800 meters. Simms placed second in the 800 at the Chandler Rotary Invitational in Chandler, Arizona in a time of 2:15.26, finishing behind just Morgan Foster of Chandler (AZ) High School.
Simms took ninth at last month's PTFCA Indoor State Championship at Penn State in a time of 2:17.37. Her time from Saturday night at Chandler is less than a second off her personal best of 2:14.87 from the preliminaries of the PIAA State Championships last spring.
"Right now, I'm pretty confident," Simms said after the race. "I think starting out my season with a 2:15 like this -- it's really early for our season up east -- it gives me a lot of confidence and hopefully I can end my season closer to 2:11."
Simms figures to be a factor in a deep 800 meters in AAA this season.
Watch a full interview with Simms above and check out more of MileSplit AZ's coverage of the Chandler Rotary Invitational and full results below:
Varsity Girls 800 Meters Finals
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Athlete Yr Team Mark
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1 Morgan Foster 11 Chandler 2:14.67
2 Simms Liz 11 Butler 2:15.26
3 Dominique Mustin 10 North Canyon 2:15.45
4 Alexys Ford 11 E. Roosevelt 2:15.68
5 Samantha Deane 12 Verrado 2:15.91
6 Abby Scott 2:17.25
7 Makyah Richard 11 North Canyon 2:17.61
8 Anna Shults 11 Peak To Peak 2:17.93
9 Madison Burciaga 9 Hamilton 2:18.16
10 Megan Zacher 10 Xavier College Preparator 2:19.17 
