PIQUA — A pair of Carroll girls track and field competitors, and one Greeneview boys relay team were the only area athletes to advance out of Thursday’s May 25 rain and sogginess at the opening day of the Division II regional track and field tournament, at Piqua High School’s Alexander Stadium.
Carroll high jumper Nikki Gazzerro advanced all the way to Columbus.
Gazzerro cleared the high jump bar at 5 feet to place fourth and earn a spot to next week’s state track and field championships.
On Thursday’s opening day of the D-II meet, finals were contested in the boys and girls 3,200-meter relays, the boys discus, pole vault and long jump, and the girls shot put and high jump. The other 16 events that were contested were preliminaries to whittle each event’s field down to the final eight competitors or relay teams.
Carroll’s Sonja Kosir was nearly three-tenths of a second quicker than her seeding time, and turned in the sixth quickest time (16.03 seconds) in the girls 100-meter hurdles preliminaries. She’ll compete in the regional final on Saturday May 27 at Piqua High.
After Greeneview and Carroll competitors created almost an entire afternoon’s drought of advancers, the Rams boys 1,600-meter relay team of Tyler Robinette, Alex Brown, Collin Matt and Daniel Sage claimed the eighth and final transfer spot in the day’s final race. The Greeneview four covered the mile-long distance in 3 minutes, 34.08 seconds to edge a team from Van Wert by 0.57 seconds for eighth place.