HUBER HEIGHTS — Records fell and some area athletes booked trips to the state championships following a soggy first day of the Division I regional track & field championships at Wayne High School’s Heidkamp Stadium.
Competing in the girls 3,200-meter relay final, the Beavercreek quartet of Juliann Williams, Savannah Roark, Jodie Pierce and Taylor Ewert obliterated the previous regional meet record by more than 10 seconds. Beavercreek won the event in a new-record time of 9 minutes, 0.46 seconds, to easily surpass the 2017 mark of 9:10.81 set by Mason.
Another Greene County-area student athlete headed to the state meet in Columbus will be Xenia’s Meaghan Wakefield, who tied Monroe’s Jenna Hensley for second place overall in the High Jump with a leap of 5 feet, 2 inches.
According to the Greater Western Ohio Conference website, Wednesday’s leap is not Wakefield’s season best. She cleared 5-3 at an earlier meet.
The top-4 finishers in each final will qualify for next weekend’s state championships at the famed Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium on the Ohio State University campus.
‘Creek’s Tyler Wasson vaulted to a potential personal-best clearance of 14 feet, 3 inches to finish fifth in the D-I boys pole vault final, and Carroll’s Brady Obleness cleared the 14-feet mark to place eighth, in what also appeared to be a personal-best finish.
Among other area athletes competing in event finals, Bellbrook’s Naika Nagy placed 13th in the girls high jump, Fairborn’s Joshua Greene was 11th in the long jump, Carroll’s David Litteral placed eighth in the discus final, and the Beavercreek boys 3,200-meter relay team of Riley Buchholz, Mark Boyd, Connor Ewert and Caleb Russell finished 11th as well.
In Wednesday’s preliminary heats, several area athletes were among the top-8 finishers to move on to Friday’s finals.
Donovan LaJeunesse of Carroll qualified to the Friday finals in both the boys 110- and 300-meter hurdles events. Beavercreek’s Abigail Hobbs finished fourth in the 400-meter prelims to advance, and Hobbs, Ashtyn Gluck, Jodie Pierce and Julianna Williams placed third in the girls 1,600-meter relay to also advance.
Area athletes competing in Friday field event finals are Carroll’s Aaron Cooper (High Jump) and Litteral (Shot Put), Beavercreek’s Eileen Yang (Pole Vault) and Xenia’s Camille Hughes (Discus).
The Division I regional championships resume on Friday, May 24. Field events are scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. with running finals set for a 6 o’clock start.
