ANDOVER Hubbard's Willis wins long jump
The top four finishers in each event advanced.
SPECIAL TO THE VINDICATOR
ANDOVER -- District champions Zack Willis of Hubbard High and the Champion girls 4x800-meter relay began the expected assault by area track and field athletes.
On the first day of the Division II district meet at Pymatuning Valley High, Willis won the long jump with a leap of 19 feet, 8 inches, and the Champion 4x800 relay of Nicole Okerlund, Danielle Bafunno, Jenna Rose and Marlena Wolfe won in 10 minutes, 11.5 seconds.
Qualifiers set
The top four finishers in each event advance to next week's regional. Four events were completed Wednesday for both the boys and girls and qualifiers for the district finals on Friday were determined in most running events.
Field events (boys shot put and high jump, girls discus and long jump) begin at 4:30 p.m. Friday and the running events start at 5.
Other regional qualifiers determined Wednesday were a pair of district runners-up from Lakeview: Heather Lewis in the shot put and Josh Province in the long jump. Champion's Steve Burkholder was third in the discus and Hubbard's Shaun Lane was third in the long jump.
Liberty's Lena Esmail was fourth in the high jump and the Girard boys 4x800 relay of Jon Raidel, Robert Caldwell, Matt Obrien and Ryan Gerchak was also fourth.
Jefferson led Pymatuning Valley 25-20 in the girls standings. Garrettsville Garfield held a 24-23 edge over Ashtabula Edgewood in the boys standings.
Girard's Cachet Murray had the top times in the 100 and 200 preliminaries, and anchored the Indians' 4x100 relay, which posted the best time. She also is one of the favorites in the long jump.
Liberty's Jessica White had the second-best times in the 100 and 200, and Jasmine Smith was third-best in the 100 and fourth-best in the 200. In addition, Liberty had the best 4x200 and 4x400 relay times and the second-best 4x100 relay mark. Also, Brittny Humphrey posted the best qualifying mark in the 300 hurdles.
Wolfe of Champion also had the best qualifying time in the 800 and is a favorite in the 1600. The Flashes also have the third best qualifying times in the 4x100 and 4x200 relays.
Among the boys, Lakeview's Justin Rush posted the second-best qualifying times in both the 110 and 300 hurdles. Teammate Scott Steward was third in the 300 hurdles and fourth in the 110 event. Lakeview had the best qualifying time in the 4x100 relay.
Other top qualifiers were Lou Scudere in the 100, Jeriel Harrison of Girard in the 200 and Jeff Metze of Brookfield in the 110 hurdles. The Scudere-Harrison battle should be interesting as Scudere had the second-best time in the 200 and Harrison was second-best in the 100.
Campbell Memorial's Darrin Johnson also should be a factor in both sprints.