Crestview, Wellsville score big with small numbers

June 2, 2019 at 12:05a.m.

COLUMBUS

A few guys from Columbiana County can make a lot of noise.

Despite taking just five male athletes to the two-day OHSAA State Track and Field Championships, Crestview finished as the state runner-up in the Division III team standings with 28 points, six behind winner East Canton. The Rebels were carried by the foursome of Brandon Yanssens, Jayce Meredith, Ethan Powell and Dylan Huff winning both the 4x200 and 4x100 relays on Saturday after shot put thrower Dominic Perry repeated as state champion. Huff was also third in the 200.

Wellsville took fourth place — one point behind McDonald’s eight athletes and 29 points — with Justin Wright as its only competitor. He won the long jump, 100 and was second in the 200.

“It’s crazy that we did this on four events,” Yanssens said. “It’s basically every meet for us. We bring five guys and we’ll be second place to a team that has 20 guys. It’s insane.”

Not only did Crestview win its relays, it broke the meet record for the 4x200 with a time of 1 minute, 27.71 seconds. The previous mark was held by a Lima Central Catholic squad in 2014 at 1:27.86.

“It was unbelievable. I told our coaches and our guys when I crossed that line no matter what place we were in, I was going to give it back to the community that came down with us — all of our families — and gave them a shout out,” said Huff, the anchor for both relays. “When I looked at the jumbotron and saw 1:27.71, I was speechless.”

Crestview coach Greg Woolman coached and taught his senior athletes — Huff, Meredith and Perry — in track since they were in sixth grade.

“My first year of teaching was with these seniors and you would hear them talk about how they were good at this sport or that sport, you see them grow and mature in a couple years,” Woolman said. “It’s special. It really is, but to break the state record with two state titles? If you would have told me that, I would have told you you were full of crap.”

Wright exorcised his demons from falling a tenth of a second short of the 100 title last year. He didn’t quite recapture the magic of that 10.57 time that had him approaching former Youngstown State star Chad Zallow’s state record, but 10.69 was more than enough to win.

There is now another YSU connection in Wright’s career. In the 200, Kalida’s Josh Verhoff beat Wright with a time of 21.39, beating the time of former YSU football player Denver Williams.

“All due respect to Josh, I’m chasing that record next year,” Wright said.