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Salem boys edge Struthers for title
The Vindicator
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Mooney’s Chyna Davis leads the field on her way to a win in the girls 100-meter hurdles at the Division II district track meet Saturday at Salem High School.
By Joe Scalzo
SALEM
With his team clinging to a 61/2-point lead over Salem entering the final event of Saturday’s Division II district meet, one of the Struthers track coaches stood back from the Reilly Stadium fence watching the 4x400-meter relay with a sense of impending doom.
“Oh man, oh man,” he said. “This is too close.”
The Wildcats weren’t running in the event. The Quakers were.
Worse yet, Salem was in Lane 4, reserved for the team with the fastest qualifying time and the Quakers needed to finish either first or second to win the meet.
In track terms, this was like watching your fiancee hold her bachelorette party in George Clooney’s Italian villa. With you in Ohio.
It’s not good for the nerves.
“Oh God,” one of the Struthers runners muttered, to no one in particular. “We need them to choke.”
They didn’t. Junior Austin Noel, sophomore Paul Matak and freshman Marcus Crittenden did their part of the first three legs, handing sophomore Blake Veglia a 10-meter lead. He did the rest, holding off Canton Central Catholic and Poland down the stretch for the victory and Salem’s second straight district title.
“I felt I had it in the last 200 [meters],” Veglia said. “I just gave all I had.”
“The best part of track is when it comes down to the 4x400 and we knew we had a pretty good team coming in,” Quakers coach Todd Huda said. “But they’re young and you never really know what you’re going to get out of them.
“Boy, they really manned up today. That was a pretty awesome race.”
Salem finished with 86.5 points to Struthers’ 83. The Quakers got individual victories from shot putter Mike King and 800 specialist Kodie Fennell but Salem’s strength is its choir, not its soloists. The Quakers scored in 14 of the meet’s 17 events.
“People don’t realize how hard it is to win a district title,” Huda said. “These guys come here expecting to win. Every race they ran today was a [personal best].
“They ran out of their minds.”
Veglia, who also anchored the winning 4x800 relay on Thursday, was engulfed by his teammates following his dramatic finish and spent the next five minutes getting hugged, high-fived and congratulated by seemingly everyone at Reilly Stadium.
“I can’t even count [how many],” he said. “It’s an indescribable feeling.”
Struthers may not have had quite as much depth as the Quakers, but their best athletes performed extremely well in the two-day meet. And none was better than senior Jermayne Brooks, who won the 100, finished second in the 200 and anchored the first-place 4x200 relay and the third-place 4x100 relay.
The top four in each event advance to next week’s regional meet at Ravenna Stadium.
“It’s most definitely a blessing [to move on in four events],” said Brooks, who was also on the Wildcats’ district championship basketball team. “If it wasn’t for all the running in basketball, I wouldn’t be in shape to do this today.
“I’m a competitor. That’s why I’m out here. I feed off that.’
Fennell (800) also captured an individual title, as did Girard’s Jamal McClendon (110 hurdles), Poland’s Chris Anderson (400) and West Branch’s Drake Lohnes (3200).
On the girls side, Canton South cruised to the team title, besting Canton Central Catholic 95-73. Marlington was third with 64, while Salem finished an area-best fourth with 59.5.
Mooney’s Chyna Davis (100 hurdles), Liberty’s Kia Butler (100) and West Branch’s Taylor Metzgar (400) won individual events.