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McDonald sweeps ITCL track championships
By BRANDON JUDEH
Berlin Center
The McDonald boys and girls track teams dominated the Inter Tri-County League Tier Two track meet on Wednesday as both teams took home the title.
McDonald’s Patrick Kunkel and Kaitlyn Srock took home MVP honors as they led the charge for each team.
The boys team won the title with 139 points, 41 more than second-place Jackson-Milton, while the girls scored 178 points, which was enough to beat Lowellville by 64 points.
Bobby Johnson of McDonald crediteds his team’s success to communication and motivating tactics.
“It was a good opportunity to work together. I was just trying to motivate my teammate and get him a good time, it’s a good way to work together and help each other out,” said Johnson.
The teammate Johnson was referring to was Zachary Hawout.
Johnson’s motivation helped Hawout win the 3200-meter run with a time of 10 minutes, 58:13 seconds, just edging out Johnson’s time of 10:58:35.
“His motivation helps me out a lot, it makes me think about what I have to look forward to and it helped me out in the 2-mile, which was the toughest event,” said Hawout.
The Blue Devils won 13 events between the boys and girls teams. Kunkel led the way with wins in the 800 and 1600.
“It’s a good feeling to come out and win MVP and win the ITCL,” said Kunkel. “We lost a lot of good teammates last year, so to come out and do this is very special.”
Also having a strong outings for the boys was Jackson-Milton’s Colton Horvath, who won the high jump — tying Deshon Pullie’s record of 6 feet — and setting a meet record in the long jump (20-73/4).
On the girls side the Blue Devils ran past the competition and Srock helped lead the way.
“I wasn’t expecting to win MVP, but I am really excited about it,” said Srock. “All of the hard work we put into it has paid off and all of our goals were reached today.”
Srock won the 100 hurdles with a time of 16.91.
Lowellville hung around with the Blue Devils for nearly the entire meet, winning seven events, including team efforts in the 4x800, 4x200 and the 4x400 relays.
Rachel Collins (200), Kelly Hynes (high jump) and Emily Carlson (800) all won individual events.
But it wasn’t enough to overcome the Blue Devils.
“It feels great to see both the boys and the girls win the [ITCL] title. We all have worked so hard for everything and it’s like a tradition for this program to win,” said Srock.
Other runners having a strong showing were Western Reserve’s Donnie Bolton who won the 400 and helped his team win the 4x200 relay.
Wellsville’s Shartece Taylor won the girls long jump and 100 while Jackson-Milton’s Cody Vaughn took home the title in the boys’ 300 hurdles.