It was was not a nice day for man nor beast nor Maple Festival traveler on Saturday, April 26, if weather determines the day's events.
It was was not a nice day for man nor beast nor Maple Festival traveler on Saturday, April 26, if weather determines the day’s events.
It was wet, cold, windy, but for track and field athletes and fans, some good things can come in trying conditions.
That is exactly what transpired at Howell Field at West Geauga High School in the Kurt Frankel Memorial Invitational track meet as the Kenston Bombers boys and girls won the titles.
The Bomber girls won with 179 points in a grand display of perseverance and determination.
The host West Geauga Wolverines were in second place with 101 points, edging out Hawken’s Hawks, who had 100.
For the boys, the Bombers edged West Geauga by scoring 150 points to the 126 of the hosts.
With two young teams, Kenston Coach Chris Ickes, while doing duty carrying all the team awards to his car as fans made their escape when the meet was over, did find many positives which his team can build on.
“We’ve got an inexperienced team this year for both boys and girls,” Ickes said. “At the same time, the kids are really a hard working bunch of kids that are easy to work with. We had a good day today based on hard work. I can’t say enough about the leadership and effort we got from Calli Jakacki today for the girls. She really stepped up when she had to, and everybody was solid.”
Jakacki won the 100-meter dash and ran legs on the 4×100 and 4×200 relay teams that also won first places in the meet. In fact, Kenston won all four relay races on the day, and the boys won three of four as well as handoffs were clean for the most part on this chilly day.
Freshman Lila Fink won two races for Kenston — the 800 and 1600 meter runs.
Senior Sadie Poudevigne was solid in both running and field events. She won the long jump with a leap of 15-5, took second in the high jump at 4-10, and finished third in both the 100 and 200 meter sprints. Sophomore Sofia Macias had a good day as well in running a leg of the winning 4×100 team, while also taking third in the 100 meter hurdles and a fifth place ending in the 300 meter hurdles.
The host West Geauga Wolverines battled all day in taking second place.
They were paced by triple event winner Kara Deister, a junior who came into the day with her right leg tightly wrapped as she deals with injury.
Deister’s 5-0 effort in the high jump was a winner, and she claimed both hurdle titles with a 15.51 in the 100 and 50.98 in the 300.
“I”ve been dealing with some injuries this season, now it’s gone into shin splints, so Coach (Taurasi) stopped me in the high jump so I wouldn’t put any more pressure on my legs,” Deister said.
Gabrielle Turner of Hawken was a double winner for the Hawks as well. She won both the shot put, with a heave of 35-2.25 feet, and the discus, with a throw of 96-10.
On the boys side of things, only the Kenston shorter relay teams won multiple times, taking the 4×100, 4×200 and 4×400 races.
West Geauga spoiled their day by winning the 4×800 event.
Senior Josh Koltas provided some sparks when needed, though, for the Bombers. He ran legs in a couple of the relay teams and made up a lot of ground doing it. He also won the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.32, not too shabby when getting loose to run in the cold was no easy task.
Youth also was served in the meet. West Geauga freshman sprinter Marcus McKissik took second in both the 100- and 200-meter dashes for the Wolverines, and junior Sam Williams was third in the 200 as well.
Kenston senior Joshua Jung had a solid day in throws by taking first in the discus with a heave of 123-6, and fourth in the shot put with a put of 35-9.
Hawken sophomore Charlie Mallett won the 200 with a time of 23.67, and West Geauga freshman Mickey Keenan won the 400 dash with a time of 56.71.
Senior teammate Robert Vash was third.
The boys 800 meter run was one of the tightest races of the day, but West Geauga junior Jacob Williams took a lead midway through and extended it easily to win his event with a time of 2:04.63.
“I did well to place well in this kind of weather today,”Williams said as he got warm inside the building at the high school. “My goal is to get a sub 2 (minute) time and make it to states.”
There weren’t many record setting performances on this blustery day, but everybody competed well and gave their best efforts. Kenston and West Geauga were the big dogs in the kennel, but they had to bite hard to succeed, and they did.
