Records fall at county meet despite weather
By JON MOFFETT
AUSTINTOWN
As if the competition weren’t stiff enough, Mother Nature added yet another hurdle for Mahoning County runners.
Athletes from 16 teams were present for the 98th annual Mahoning County track and field meet at Falcon Stadium on Saturday. Also in attendance were rain, sleet, hail, some snow flurries and sub-freezing temperatures.
“It’s a little cold; a little colder than I’d wish for,” said an out-of-breath Brandon Pasvanis of Boardman. “The wind hurts more than anything, I feel.”
Pasvanis won the 1600-meter run in Division I with a time of 4:48.69.
Pasvanis said he dedicated the race to his older brother, and former Spartan runner, Matt, who was in attendance.
The victory earned 10 points for his Spartans, which finished second in Div. I with a score of 114.5 points. The host Falcons won the meet for Div. I with 163.5 points.
The Boardman girls, with 182 points, won the Div. I meet for the 10th consecutive time. Fitch placed second with 134.
Boardman senior Doriyon Glass was named female MVP. Glass won the 100 and 200 and anchored Boardman’s winning 4x200 and 4x100 relays.
In Div. II, West Branch won the meet for the boys with 154 points, and Struthers (130) placed second. Cardinal Mooney (170.5) won the Div. II meet for the girls, and West Branch (166.5) earned second place.
South Range claimed the Div. III boys and girls crowns. Springfield finished second for the boys, and Lowellville for the girls.
Leading the Rockets was senior Monica Ciarniello, who was named Div. III girls MVP. She won the 3200-meter run, 1600 and 800. She also posted the best overall times for those events. She also served as the anchor for the 4x800 relay.
“This year I’ve been training a lot harder because it is my senior year, and I want to go out doing good,” Ciarniello said. “I’d been here for three years and I hadn’t won the MVP award, so I was working for that too.”
Ciarniello, 18, added that the award was her only MVP award from any meet of her career.
There were also several record-breaking performances at Saturday’s meet. West Branch senior Joey Schlueter broke the meet record for Div. II boys with a time of 9:57.12. The previous record was 10:15.96. Also, the East 4x100 relay, consisting of seniors TreVaughn Thomas and Alexander Petway, and juniors Michael Thomas and Leon Edwards, set a record with a time of 44.85 seconds. The team broke the previous record of 44.93 seconds set last year.
On the field side, Canfield senior Dustin Brode broke records in both the shot put and the discus. While his 66 feet, 5 inches in the shot put was impressive — the old record was 61-7 — it was his discus toss that ripped the page out of the record book. Brode hurled the discus a whopping 184-6, shattering the old record of 170-4.
But perhaps the most exciting finish of the day came on the Div. I boys 300 hurdles.
Boardman senior Max Pakalnis and TreVaughn Thomas matched each other stride for stride until the final hurdle. Thomas crossed the finish line at 41.49 seconds. Pakalnis clocked in at 41.50.
“That finish was nasty,” Pakalnis said panting. “TreVaughn came up on me at the end there, and I had a good lead about 100 meters away. But like every race, your form starts to break down and you’re just trying to hold it together. I stutter-stepped over the last two hurdles, and that’s where he came up on me.”
Pakalnis, who also finished second overall in the 100-meter hurdles behind Thomas, added, “But that was a great race. We pushed each other until the end.”