HIGH SCHOOL TRACK Lakeview girls, JFK boys capture championships

The Lakeview girls repeated as champions in the Lakeview Invitational.
By DOUG CHAPIN
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
CORTLAND -- Lakeview High repeated as girls champion and Warren John F. Kennedy captured the boys title Saturday in the seventh Lakeview Invitational track and field meet.
Lakeview outdistanced JFK, 111-97, in the girls competition while the Kennedy boys triumphed, 91-74, over Ashtabula Edgewood.
The Eagles won despite missing Ben Nolan, a state champion a year ago in the 400-meter dash. JFK's solid depth was evident in two relay victories and the fact Kennedy won just one individual event.
"We've got a number of boys who are well-rounded," JFK coach Tim McNeil said. "Ben's been battling shin splints all season and we've already won another invitational without him. The kids believe in themselves."
Key contributors
Keith Black won the long jump for the Eagles and tied for third in the high jump. Jimmy Kokrak contributed seconds in both hurdle events and Shane Golden was second in the 100 and a part of both winning relay squads.
He was joined in the 400 relay by Matt Karl, Matt Natale and Anthony Ambeliotis. The winning 1600 relay team included Golden, Karl, Natale and Brandon Battee. In addition, Battee was second in the 400 and seventh in the high hurdles and Karl was fourth in the 200.
"Shane Golden, all year long and today again, just does it all for us in the sprint events," McNeil said.
The coach said Nolan is questionable for this week's Trumbull County Meet.
"We're not sure if he's going to be able to go in the county meet. We're just trying to get him healthy for the district."
Girls display depth
Lakeview's girls also showed great depth, placing in all but one of the 12 individual events and placing two girls in seven of those events.
"One of the pleasant surprises this year is how some kids have stepped up, and we've had more depth than we thought we would," Lakeview coach Diana Neighbarger said.
"We were undefeated in our league meets, won our Relays event and finished eighth of 20 teams at the Poland Invitational, the best we've ever done there."
Lakeview's top performers Saturday were Heather Lewis with a first in the discus and second in the shot put, and Katie Betts with a first in the 200 and a second in the 100.
Double winners
Darren Johnson of Campbell Memorial (100 and 200) and Nick Panezich of Springfield (shot put, discus) were double winners. Other local boys winners included Kyle Dalton of LaBrae in the high jump and Bryan Cowie of Newton Falls in the 110 high hurdles.
Lauren Chaves (100), Chelsey Morganstern (400) and Angeline Cicero (300 hurdles) were event winners for JFK, while Laura Kreft of LaBrae won the long jump.
Clipper Invitational
COLUMBIANA -- The West Branch High boys and girls won titles at the Clipper Invitational meet at Columbiana High School.
West Branch scored 228 points to win the girls title. Malvern was second with 115 points.
In the boys division, the Warriors scored 169 points while Columbiana finished with 115.
Alyssa Bowman of West Branch was presented the high-point award for girls events and Brandon Inboden of Heritage Christian was given a similar award for boys events.