XENIA — Twenty six area athletes representing six Greene County-area high schools will be competing June 2-3 at the OHSAA state track and field championships at the famed Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium on the Ohio State University campus in Columbus.
Beavercreek is the area’s lone Division I program in the meet, with 10 state qualifiers. Five boys (Jacob Benigno, Riley Buchholz, Jay Drennen, Ben Ewert and Ian Johnson) and five girls (Jordan Grant, Jodie Pierce, Stephanie Pierce, Lauren Shuman and Eileen Yang.
Benigno, Buchholz, Ewert and Johnson are on the boys 3,200-meter relay team; Drennen is in the discus final; Ewert is a finalist in the boys D-I mile run; and Johnson is also competing in the 800.
Beavercreek’s Pierces, Grant and Shuman are in the girls 3,200 relay; Stephanie Pierce is also in the 800 run; and Yang is a finalist in the D-I girls pole vault competition.
Carroll and Greeneview have athletes in the Division II state meet.
The Patriots are sending the most boys to the state meet with six: Karl Grossman, Sam Janson, Mike Laughlin, Jacob Rieman, Stafford Stevens and Dylan Tilt. They also have a female representative: high jumper Nikki Gazzerro.
Grossman, Janson, Stevens and Tilt are the mile relay quartet; and Janson is also in the 400 run. Rieman is in the D-II discus final, and Laughlin is in the 3,200-meter (2 mile) run.
The Rams’ lone entry is senior 800-meter runner Ocean Morris.
In Division III, Cedarville, Xenia Legacy Christian and Yellow Springs have athletes on hand.
Cedarville sends Nick Christman, Devin Gruet, Brandon Pollock, Seth Salisbury and Wesley Williams to the D-III boys meet, but had no girls qualifiers.
Christman, Gruet and Pollock are in the 800- and 1,600-meter relays. Salisbury joins that trio in the 1,600 while Williams is the fourth runner for the 800 relay.
Legacy’s lone qualifier is distance runner Isaac Erlundson, who is in the D-III mile run finale.
Yellow Springs is sending one of each: James Browning represents the Bulldog guys as a state qualifier in the high jump; Julian Roberts reps the gals as a 300-meter hurdles state qualifier.