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Home, sweet home for Salem’s boys and girls
By Charles grove
salem
From favorites to underdogs, the Salem track and field teams were the highlights of the Division II district meet the Quakers hosted.
The boys team squeaked out a victory, defeating Coventry 83-80 while the girls defeated Poland 87.5-74.
The boys won three events on Saturday’s final day. Trey Double won the 1600, Turner Johnson won the high jump and the 4x400 relay team of Seth Ameduri, Connor McKee, Johnson and Quinlan Rumsey sealed the deal.
The girls were dominant in the discus, taking first and second place. Caitlyn Marx threw 139 meters while Helene Shontz was runner up at 127-09.
“[A district title] is something we talk about trying to achieve every year and this is the second year in a row,” Salem boys head coach Robert Motz said. “Honestly, going into today we thought it was kind of a longshot but we had performances that exceeded expectations.”
Some of those stepping up were freshman Seth Ameduri, who ran the first leg of the 4x400 relay, and Jon Gerace, who finished fourth in the high jump to get the Quakers a much-needed five points.
“We don’t really like to think of it as peaking,” Motz said. “We just expect heightened performance under heightened levels of expectations and we hope they perform even better at regionals. And maybe they make some noise at state.”
As much as the Salem boys surprised themselves, the biggest upset of the day came on the girls side when sophomore Haley Rozeski, who was seeded 13th out of 16 in the 1600 final, came on at the end to finish second behind Poland freshman Gianna Stanich.
“This means so much,” Rozeski said. “I didn’t think this would ever happen. I just wanted to stay with the pack and saw they were going a little slow in the first lap so I just tried to stay behind them. The girl I was following started slowing down the last 300 so I went around her.”
Rozenski passed Kinsley Anstine of Fairless for second in the last 50 meters and didn’t stop running until she knew she had it.
“I thought they were going to catch me because I didn’t know how close they were,” Rozeski said. “ I know all those girls have real good kicks. I just knew I had to go.”
The biggest drama of the day included Salem as well. South Range and Salem both ran identical times in the girls 4x100 relay and finished fourth. The teams had to run again against each other about 20 minutes later with only the winner advancing to regionals. The Quakers won the runoff.
“Up on the board they had us fourth and then fifth and then fourth and then fifth. We were all bummed out because we thought we got fifth,” Salem’s Macey Austin said. “But when we heard we were going to run again I was like, ‘I want to do that. I want to go to regionals.’”
The duo of Marx and Shontz couldn’t be touched in the discus. Marx said she’s especially glad to have Shontz, who took second despite not throwing all week with a knee injury, with her at regionals next week.
“I want to have someone with me at regionals that I can talk to and if I get to state I want her to be there with me, too,” Marx said.
Other district winners include Rob Lozier (West Branch) in the 300 hurdles, Dominic Perry (Crestview) in the shot put and Adrianna DeLucia (South Range) in the long jump.
Regional competition will be Thursday and Saturday at Austintown Fitch. Field events start at 5 p.m. Thursday with running events at 6 p.m. On Saturday, field events start at 11:30 a.m. with running events at 12:30 p.m.