Mahoning Valley track athletes advance from D2 regional

By Joe Scalzo | May 27, 2011 at 12:10a.m.

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Girard's Ashley Wagner clears the bar during the high jump during the regional track meet at Ravenna High School.

RAVENNA

Salem senior Mike King’s coach, Jen Neapolitan, pumped her arms and sang, “We’re going to the dance, we’re going to the dance.” Ursuline junior Courtney Powell merely put her hands up near her ears and smiled. And Girard junior Ashley Wagner kicked her legs up and down and whirled her arms as she tried not to scream too loud.

“It’s my happy dance,” Wagner said, laughing.

Different reactions. Same reasons.

Next stop, state.

Eight area athletes and one relay advanced to Columbus after Thursday’s first day of the Division II regional meet at Ravenna Stadium. None was more stunned than Wagner, who tied Cindy Niemczura’s 31-year-old school record in the high jump with a leap of 5 feet, 5 inches and won a regional title in the process. Newton Falls senior Destiny Prusky took second.

“I completely thought that girl [Prusky] was going to dominate over me,” said Wagner.

And if someone had told her at the beginning of the season that she would tie the school record and win a regional title?

“I would have said you’re on [drugs],” she said, giggling.

LaBrae senior Andre Elkins was the Valley’s other regional champion, winning the long jump with a personal-best leap of 22 feet, 4 inches. Elkins, who placed eighth in the event at last year’s state meet, said he’s jumping better in part because he had been playing baseball until a week ago and didn’t have as much time to work on his technique.

“I had a lot of nerves last year [in Columbus] but now that I’ve been down there before, I can handle it a little better,” he said. “I’m just trying to peak at the right time.”

King placed second in the discus — the top four in each event qualify for next weekend’s state meet — to continue a terrific season for an athlete who missed the second half of last year’s track season after undergoing back surgery.

“It just feels great to come back and do this,” he said. “I’m just glad my hard work is paying off.”

Powell took fourth in the shot put, sweating out the last few throws by her competitors to earn her first state berth. But her stress started long before that. Powell had just the seventh-best throw coming out of the prelims — the top nine advance to finals — and was worried she would get jumped.

“I didn’t think I made it,” she said. “Even my best throw, it felt like a normal 36 [footer] and it was like 38. I feel really good right now.”

Lakeview’s 4x800-meter relay placed third, giving seniors Aaron Jesse and Nick Tripi and sophomore Eric Harris their second straight trip to Columbus. (The fourth member, senior Daniel Marhulik, was running the event for just the third time.)

Tripi actually had to stop to get the baton after Jesse’s opening leg. When a reporter joked about making the moment more dramatic than it was, Jesse said, “Yeah, there was a backflip and then a ninja kick.”

Added Tripi: “And I caught the baton with my pinky finger just as it almost hit the ground.”

Last year, the Bulldogs were a surprise state qualifier. This year, they expected to go and enter next week’s meet confident. Sort of.

“State is like no other meet I’ve ever run in my entire life and I’ve done it [track] all the way through middle school,” said Harris, who helped Lakeview place ninth last year. “You won’t have a feeling quite like running at the state meet.

“You can strategize all you want, but you have to be ready for anything there.”