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McDonald dominates ITCL Tier Two meet
By Joe Scalzo
BERLIN CENTER
As soon as Wellsville senior Justin Gregg finished off a convincing victory in the 110-meter hurdles, he jogged back to the starting line and got ready for the next event — the 100-meter dash.
“That’s rough,” he said of doing both races, something very few runners attempt. “You’re tired after you’re done from the hurdles, but I’ve just got that mentality to win.”
Gregg won the 100, then helped the Tigers take second in the 4x100 relay a few minutes later and capped a terrific performance at Wednesday’s Inter Tri-County League Tier Two meet by winning the 200.
Gregg and his senior teammate, Maleya Fultz, both earned high-point honors for the meet, which was just about the only thing McDonald didn’t win. Their medals were the track equivalent of trying to hold back the ocean during a hurricane as McDonald’s boys and girls track teams both won team titles by more than 100 points.
“I think we look at this meet as a barometer to tell us where we are before our tournament stuff,” said McDonald boys coach Lou Domitrovich, whose team scored 190 points, compared to 75 for second-place Western Reserve, the host school. “We don’t necessarily try to peak at a league meet like this, or even a district meet. We try to plan ahead and we have that luxury to be able to do that with the depth we have on the team.”
McDonald’s boys won nine of the 16 events, including a meet record-tying win in the high jump by Matt Seitz (6-foot). Patrick Kunkel 91600), Jonah Walp (400), Austin Colburn (300 hurdles), Bryce Steet (3200), Jacob Foster (shot put) and Albert Yates (discus) also won individual events and McDonald won the 4x400 and 4x800 relays.
“For some people, this is their Olympics,” Domitrovich said. “That’s great. That’s wondeful. That’s what’s amazing about the sport of track and field, that so many people get an opportunity to do different things.
“For others, you’re able to set your sights and your goals on a different time. We have 3 1/2 weeks to really train hard and set our sights and goals on other things.”
Columbiana’s Britton Steiginga set a meet record in the long jump with a leap of 21-9 1/4 — more than a foot better than the previous mark — and Lowellville’s Nick Lucente won the 800. Western Reserve captured the other two wins, in the 4x100 and 4x200 relays.
McDonald’s girls were coming off a team title at last week’s Trumbull County meet and won 10 events on Wednesday, finishing with 202 points compared to 83 for runner-up Reserve.
Jai’Lyn Mosley set a meet record in the discus (144-5) and teammate Tory Ross threw a personal-best 38-8 1/4 in the shot put to finish first. Sarah Jones won the 800 and 1600 and teammates Kaitlyn Srock (100 hurdles), Joya Humphries (100), Abby D’Amore (400) and Heidi Hoffman (3200) also earned individual victories for McDonald, which also won the 4x400 and 4x800 relays.
“We approached it as the district meet is one week away,” said McDonald girls coach Mary Domitrovich. “Some kids we wanted to back off a little bit and some other kids, especially some seniors, we wanted to give them the chance to finish out strong in their last year.
“It’s nice that we can rely on some other bodies sometimes. We have some depth this year, thank goodness.”
Fultz won the 300 hurdles (an event she started running midway through the season), placed third in the 100 and long jump and helped the Tigers place second in the 4x100 relay.
She actually had to be pulled off the bus to get her medal.
“It feels really good,” she said, laughing. “I didn’t know I got it. I didn’t even know I was close.”
Fultz’s teammate, Shartece Taylor, set a meet record with a time of 25.83 in the 200 — crushing the previous mark of 27.14 set in 2007. Taylor also won the long jump, Columbiana’s Shayla Ray won the high jump and Lowellville won the 4x200 and 4x400 relays.