Track and field: Firelands girls, Bay boys in control of team races at D-II Orrville District

ORRVILLE — Not to put any undue pressure on anybody, but after the first day of the Division II district track and field meet, it appears that only a cataclysmic force of nature will keep the Bay boys and the Firelands girls from winning their respective team titles.

Those squads were that good May 16 at Orrville High School, as the Falcons look to win their second district title in a row and the Rockets hope to improve by one spot their runner-up finish of a year ago.

But if they do win their team titles, they will do so in entirely different ways. Firelands certainly has standouts on the squad, but the team’s domination comes from its depth as much as anything else. On the other hand, Bay’s boys are likely to score no more than a handful of points in the field events but could possibly win every event on the track except the two hurdles races.

The Rockets will be well represented in all but the hurdles races, as they had the fastest times in the 4×200 and 4×100 relays after easily winning the 4×800 relay. Jayden Perrine and Liam O’Leary both won their heats in the 100 and 200 dashes and could conceivably place 1-2 in each. O’Leary also qualified in the 400 along with Brady McCall, as did William Dunstan and Kieran Ripley in the 800. In all, a Bay runner crossed the finish line first ten different times.

What makes Bay’s performance all the more impressive is that the team has had to deal with a series of nagging injuries that have caused many of their runners to miss large chunks of the season. But others stepped in when needed, and the Rockets developed some exceptional sprint depth with individuals such as Jack Krueger, Brendan Spellman, Jace Knapp and Charles Rice.

Bay also is expected to fare very well in the distance races, with Connor Spellman running both the 1,600 and 3,200, Ripley running both the 1,600 and 800, Dunstan running the 800 and Michael Hanselman running the 3,200. Those four individuals combined to win the 4×800 relay in 8:09.46.

“We’ve had a lot of injuries so far so there were a lot of substitutions and wondering who’s running what event,” Perrine said. “But we’ve been finding guys and finding the right spots for them because we have a dense sprinter lineup. Our distance team, too. There are a lot of different ways we could do it, but the lineup we have right now evenly distributes all our speed, and I think that’s what has us on top.”

After the first day, Bay finds itself well back in the team standings with 10 points. Creston Norwayne leads with 29, followed by Orrville (24), Brookside (19), Canal Fulton Northwest (16), Fairview (12) and Doylestown Chippewa (11). After Bay comes Firelands and Keystone with eight points and Elyria Catholic with four.

Firelands girls already have scored 32 points, well ahead of LC8 rival Brookside with 16. Elyria Catholic and Keystone are next with 14, while Fairview is eighth with 5.

The Falcons are led by Ariannah Floyd, who qualified first in both hurdle races and also ran on the day’s fastest 4×200 relay. She also runs on her team’s top-seeded 4×400 relay, but the event was not run on the first day because there weren’t enough entrants to warrant preliminaries.

“Our thought was just to make it to finals, and then, hopefully go further to regionals and hopefully states,” Floyd said. “Brookside is very tough competition, but I think we have enough in us to get the win.”

But this certainly isn’t a one-woman show. Kendra Hardwick will join Floyd in both hurdle finals, and Audrey Smith is the top qualifier in the 400. Firelands had the top qualifying time in the 4×200 relay and the third best in the 4×100 and took second in the 4×800 relay. Also, Jorja Weber and Karly Sweinhagen placed 2-4 in the shot put.

But most of those performances were expected. What wasn’t expected was freshman Teaghan Jasinski adding a whopping 4 inches to her personal record to win the high jump with a leap of 5-2. She and Aubrey Cindia of Keystone, who tied for sixth in the state last year, both cleared 5-2, but Jasinski won on misses.

“I was not expecting to win this, but I’m very proud of myself,” Jasinski said. “For my first attempt at 5-0, I was kind of getting inside my head. But then on my second attempt I got out of my head. I just said, ‘Run as fast as you can, jump, and you got it.’ It was the same at 5-2.”

Two other field events were won by area athletes, the boys long jump by Brookside’s Lincoln Barnhart and the girls shot put by Brookside’s Zuriah Radeff Koonce. In addition, Bay won the boys 4×800 relay, a race that Elyria Catholic won on the girls side. The top four finishers in all finals qualify to compete next week in the regional meet at Austintown Fitch.

Boys long jump

Barnhart placed eighth in the state last year, so his victory doesn’t come as a total surprise. But he has more than his share of struggles this season, making the victory all the more sweet.

“I’ve been kind of changing my run-up this whole season,” he said. “But I’ve been changing too much. I just kind of went back to what was working for me last year, a longer run-up where I gradually build up speed. When I’m smacking the board, that’s when my best jumps happen. This season there was a plethora of things. I was missing the board, my steps were off, all sorts of things. But today, everything was clicking. My steps were perfect, I was smacking the board, and it all worked out.”

Barnhart entered the finals with the best jump in the competition before eventually reaching his winning distance of 20-11 3/4, just holding off Trent Roe of Orrville by 1 1/4 inches. Fairview senior Owen McMonagle was third at 20-7 3/4, and Jeffrey Jemison of Holy Name took the final regional spot with a leap of 20-7 1/4.

“I knew it was going to be tough,” Barnhart said. “There were a bunch of guys deadlocked in that 20-5 to 20-10 range. I knew it was going to be tough, but I was seeded second, so I knew that as long as I did what I’m capable of, that’s all I could ask for and it probably would be good enough to get to regionals.”

Girls shot put

Radeff Koonce possesses a rare combination of skills that allows her to win the shot put by nearly five feet with a toss of 40-2 1/2, then win her heat of the 100 dash just moments later. She also anchored Brookside’s 4×100 relay to the second fastest qualifying time, and on the meet’s second day she will add the long jump to her lineup, an event that saw her qualify to the state meet last year.

“It’s really just executing,” she said of her diverse skills. “I feel like it’s really easy for a runner also to throw. I do the same routine warming up for throwing as I do for running. When you’re throwing you have to have power and be explosive, and it’s the same with running and with long jump. Everything kind of works together.”

Headed to Cleveland State next year to compete in the multis, she entered the meet as the top seed, a designation that can be either a blessing or a curse, depending upon how it is handled.

“As a top seed, you can’t have the mindset that you’re the top seed,” she said. “You just have to execute and think, ‘I’m here to throw just like everyone else is.’ There were times when I came in near the bottom and threw really well. You can’t just come in with the mindset of ‘I’m the top seed, so I’m going to win.’”

4×800 relay

In the only track final of the day, Elyria Catholic’s girls took the lead during the second leg and gradually pulled away, winning by more than 10 seconds over Firelands with a time of 10:11.36. EC’s all underclass relay consisted of freshmen Sophia Niederst (2:34.9) and Ella Feskanich (2:31.7), and juniors Gracie Jones (2:32.9) and Audrey Fote (2:31.8). Fairview also earned a regional berth, placing third with a 10:22.96 clocking.

In the boys relay, Bay’s Ripley took the lead from the opening gun and the Rockets never trailed, crossing the line with a time of 8:09.46. Ripley was timed in 2:03.6, followed by Connor Spellman (2:02.8), Michael Hanselman (2:02.0) and William Dunstan (2:01.1). Keystone was second in 8:15.48, and Fairview was third with an 8:17.72 clocking.