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South Range, Warren JFK share regional title
By Joe Scalzo
navarre
With his team clinging to a single-digit lead entering the 4x400-meter relay at Friday’s Division III regional meet at Fairless High School, Warren JFK coach Robert Andrews nervously kept one eye on the race and one eye on the results board, hoping for two things to happen:
McDonald to finish no better than fifth.
South Range to finish no better than third.
“I made sure I knew what lane they were in, so when that [lane] number came up on the board, I would know exactly where we were [in the standings],” Andrews said.
Andrews actually had a 4x400 relay capable of challenging for a state title but the Eagles were disqualified after (temporarily) winning the event at last week’s district meet for running on the lane line. So, with his team’s events done, he watched helplessly as South Range’s incomparable anchor, senior Andrew O’Leary, made up at least a 20-meter gap and nearly caught first-place Gilmour Academy.
“I’ve got to give it to O’Leary,” Andrews said. “He’s incredible.”
O’Leary, who was running his fourth race of the day, finally seemed to start struggling in the final 50 meters, holding on to finish third and give the Raiders six points — good enough to tie JFK for the regional title with 50 points.
McDonald, which took fifth in the 4x400, finished third in the team standings with 49 points and Maplewood was fourth with 41.
It was the first regional track crown in school history for South Range, and Raiders coach Dave Purins had absolutely no idea it had happened. He was passing out bottles of water to his relay runners when a reporter told him what they had done.
“Really? That’s really cool,” he said. “We weren’t really counting it [the points] out.”
Neither were his runners, with one yelling to a group of his teammates “I think we just tied for the regional championship!” and another saying “What does that mean? What do we do?”
“We didn’t have any idea we were in the running,” said Purins, whose goal was to advance as many runners as possible to state, not to pile up points. “Really, it’s because of our seniors. Those guys carry this team.”
O’Leary ran a 48.11 to set a regional record in the 400 (the previous mark of 48.91 had stood since 1998), placed third in the 200 and helped the 4x200 relay place third.
JFK sophomore Chad Zallow almost set regional records in the 110 hurdles (14.20) and 300 hurdles (38.51), missing out by two-hundredths of a second in each event. He also helped the Eagles win the 4x200 relay.
“I was just going for first place,” said Zallow, who led JFK to its first regional title since 2007. “I’ve still got two more years to get those [records].”
Maplewood senior Wyatt Hartman broke his own regional record in the 800, lowering it from 1:54.76 to 1:54.48.
“I wanted to go out in second or third in the first 400 because this year I’ve been going out too fast and I think I’ve been dying [in the last 400],” Hartman said. “So I really wanted to focus on changing gears at the 400 mark and then find that next gear at the 200 mark. I think I was able to do that well today.”
On the girls side, Warren JFK junior Morgan Rice won both hurdling events (finishing with a personal-best time of 45.33 in the 300s), Wellsville junior Shartece Taylor won the 100 and Badger junior Leah Blaney won the long jump.
“So many things really can go wrong [in the hurdling events] — you can fall, someone can false start — so it makes me nervous but you just can’t think about that,” she said. “I’m really happy I did so well today.”
McDonald advanced three relays to Columbus, piling up 43 points to finish an area-best third in the girls team standings. Gilmour Academy placed first with 53.50.