No surprise: McDonald sweeps D-III district

May 25, 2013 at 12:00a.m.

By Joe scalzo

new middletown

With the parents snapping pictures from the bleachers, the McDonald High girls track team posed near midfield with yet another district trophy after Friday’s Division III meet at Springfield High School.

About 75 yards away, near the very top of the stands, stood publicity-shy coach Mary Domitrovich, who was content to let the spotlight shine on her athletes.

“I think that sums up both of my sisters,” said McDonald boys coach Lou Domitrovich, who did pose with his district championship team, albeit on the edges. “My sister Jeanette is the junior high girls coach and she was the head varsity girls coach for quite some time, but she realized the importance of the junior high program and gave up the varsity to work with them.

“She gets them interested in track. It’s a tough sport to love, there’s no doubt about that.”

While McDonald’s school district is roughly the same size as a Super Wal-Mart, its athletic program (particularly in track and cross country) has long been one of the Valley’s best and it’s because its athletes start (figuratively) drinking the Kool-Aid around the time they stop (literally) drinking Kool-Aid.

McDonald’s boys have won six straight district track titles and the girls have won four of the last six, finishing second in the other two years.

“It speaks volumes of our team, girls and boys, but it speaks even more about how good our program is from junior high all the way up,” Lou Domitrovich said. “If you don’t have a feeder system, your varsity programs are nothing. We have a great feeder system with people who are devoted at that level.”

Led by senior Patrick Kunkel, who won the 800- and 1600-meter runs, placed third in the 3200 (running that race all-out for the first time since he was a sophomore) and helped the Blue Devils win the 4x800 relay, McDonald scored 129 points to edge South Range (109).

McDonald’s girls, meanwhile, rolled up 141.5 points — more than double that of second-place United (69). The win followed victories at the Trumbull County meet and the Inter Tri-County League Tier Two meet.

“I’m happy with our team performance,” said freshman Heidi Hoffman, who won the 3200, finished second in the 1600 with a personal-best time (5:22.58) and helped the Blue Devils finish second in the 4x800. “We’ve all worked really hard and we work together so well.”

Warren JFK sophomore Chad Zallow set a meet record in the 110 hurdles (14.36), just missed the 300 hurdle record by 12-hundredths of a second (39.12) and helped the Eagles win the 4x200 relay.

Zallow also appeared to be on the winning 4x400 relay team but the Eagles (who would have been a state contender in the race) were later disqualified for running on the lane line.

It was the second stunning relay result of the meet. Earlier, Ursuline’s boys 4x100 relay dropped the baton and failed to finish after setting a meet record in Wednesday’s preliminaries.

United’s Allison Parks had the best meet of any girl, winning the 800 and 1600 and leading the Eagles to wins in the 4x400 and 4x800 relays.