Double the pleasure: Moody wins 2 titles

By Joe Scalzo

Mooney’s 4x100 relay repeated as state champion and Lakeview was second in the team standings.

COLUMBUS — Just after 1:05 p.m. Saturday, Lakeview senior Ben Moody captured the first state title of his storied athletic career in one of the most unpredictable events in track and field, the 110-meter hurdles.

Yet instead of celebrating, he took a second to catch his breath, looked over at his father and caught a bottle of water lobbed over the fence.

His work was just beginning.

Earlier this year, sometime after “Could I?” and long before “No, that’s crazy,” Moody made the gutsy decision to run both the 110 hurdles and the 100 dash, two power events that tax the legs and leave little time for recovery.

Because they’re run back-to-back, Moody had less than five minutes to get back to the starting line and get mentally and physically prepared for another race. Instead, he was ushered into the awards area.

“I tried to get down [to the starting line] and they kept telling me I had to come here and get checked in,” he said. “Then they were like, ‘No, you don’t have to be here. Go ahead and go.’

“It would have been nice to get a couple seconds break.”

Turns out, he didn’t need it. Moody added the 100 title — one area official thought it was the first time an area athlete had won both events at the state meet, partly because almost no one is crazy enough to try it — and helped the Bulldogs finish runner-up for the Division II team title.

It was the Bulldogs’ best finish since winning the team title in 1970.

“For me, it was a helluva end to my senior year,” said Moody, a Cornell football recruit who also placed fourth in the long jump and third in the 4x100 relay. “Pardon my language, but that’s the only way I can say it.

“It was fun. It was pure fun every week, every practice. I mean, there was never any fighting and I don’t think there was one time when we [his teammates] stopped laughing.”

Mooney’s 4x100 relay, meanwhile, probably wanted to cry at this time last week.

The Cardinals’ anchor and fastest runner, senior Matt McWilson, had injured his hamstring and was forced to scratch the event at the regional meet.

Last year, Mooney had lost one of its relay runners, then-junior Scott Johnson, to injury, but inserted a freshman named Charles Brown and managed to win the title anyway. The Cardinals did the same last week — this time the freshman was Roosevelt Griffin — but wondered if they had tested fate once too often.

“He was whining and crying,” Johnson joked of McWilson. “We were like, ‘You gonna run, Matt?’ And he’d say, ‘I don’t know. It hurts.’”

Thanks to a combination of rest, physical therapy and a bucketful of ibuprofen, McWilson managed to get to 85 percent, which was just enough to race. The Cardinals then successfully defended their title — the school’s third win in the event in the past four years.

“It’s great,” said Johnson, who joined McWilson and juniors Braylon Heard and Ray Vinopal on the podium. “Last year it was bittersweet watching these guys win.

“Now it’s just sweet overall.”

Salem’s 4x200 relay of Ben Eisel, Dustin Matak, Dustin Huffman and Zack Penick gave Columbiana County its fourth state title this weekend, joining East Palestine’s 4x100 relay (Div. III), Crestview senior Jakob Leon (Div. III high jump) and United senior Victoria Bates (Div. II shot).

“As soon as Benjy started the race, we knew we had it,” said Huffman. “We just had to run our race.”

Hubbard junior Andrew Zitnik earned All-Ohio in two events, placing fourth in the 200 and sixth in the 100. Poland junior Robert Balzano was third in the 400 and helped the Bulldogs place fifth in the 4x400 relay.

Champion junior Andrew Austin just missed a state title in the high jump, jumping 6-foot-6 to finish second at his first state meet, 1 inch behind the winner.

“It’s a different experience,” he said. “You get a lot of adrenaline from being here and a lot of distractions. But if you learn to push that out, it shouldn’t distract you at all.

“To be a state runner-up, it feels really good.”

scalzo@vindy.com