The Chardon Hilltoppers and Kenston Bombers competed May 9 and 10 in the WRC Championships. Originally only scheduled for Thursday, the championships expanded to two days after rain throughout day one.
The Chardon Hilltoppers and Kenston Bombers competed May 9 and 10 in the WRC Championships. Originally only scheduled for Thursday, the championships expanded to two days after rain throughout day one.
Chardon boys placed first and Hilltoppers girls finished second in their conference.
To win the meet, Hilltoppers boys won individual WRC conference titles in 11 out of 17 events.
Winning three of the events were the sprinters who won the 100m, 200m and 400m events.
Winning the 100m for the Hilltoppers was Caleb Hewitt, who ran 10.92 and was the only runner in the field to break 11 seconds in the 100m.
Karl Dietz, the defending OHSAA 400m state champion, won both the 200m and 400m sprint events for the Hilltoppers. Dietz completed one lap around the track in 49.67 seconds to edge out the second-place finisher from Riverside by .28 seconds.
Later in the meet, Dietz also won the 200m with a winning time of 22.07.
After winning the 400m, Dietz said that he was excited about the post-season ahead.
“There was some good competition here today,” he said. “There’s going to be great competition next week. Really onward, it’s going to be battles every single race, so I am excited for that.”
Chardon’s male distance runners also won all three distance events: the 800m (Matthew Sopchak), 1600m (Taman Chokshi) and 3200m (Chokshi).
After winning the 1600m, Chokshi said his focus for the race was to “sit and kick.” This is a strategy in which the runner stays in the main pack of the race, then tries to sprint past the leaders in the final laps.
“I knew there was a good Riverside kid and a good Kenston kid, both really good leg speed,” Chokshi said. “I knew I just had to sit and kick. Not the prettiest of days, but great weather for distance running.”
The Hilltoppers boys team also won three of four relay events: the 4x200m (Anthony Catania, Cohen Dawson, Landun Henry, Hewitt), the 4x400m (Cohen Dawson, Jacob Nieset, Toby Rogers, Sopchak) and the 4x800m (Jack Roman, Grayson Hallam, Dylan Snider, Sopchak).
Additional events won by Chardon boys were the long jump (Hewitt) and the 300m hurdles (Dawson).
After winning the 300m hurdles, Dawson said the race was very close throughout, but he was motivated to try to win.
“Mainly just the drive to get first (was my motivation),” Dawson said. “I didn’t want to go home and have second, I wanted to get first.”
Just as Chardon boys won many WRC individual titles, Chardon girls team also placed first in the conference in six events.
Chardon girls distance runners won three events: the 800m (Eve Downs), 1600m (Rae Kawalec) and 3200m (Kawalec).
In addition to winning three distance races, the Chardon girls team also won the discus (Jillian Morrison), the 4x800m (Bethany Cappello, Cate Dawson, Mira Palombo, Micah Tager) and the 400m (Cappello).
Highlights for the Kenston track and field team included Sadie Poudevigne winning two individual WRC titles. Poudevigne won the girls high jump for the Bombers with a jump of five feet. She also won the girls long jump with a jump of 16 feet, 4.25 inches.
Teams from both Chardon and Kenston would next compete in the OHSAA District Track meet this week.
