Big Walnut girls dominate at 15-team Bellaire Relays

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

Joe Evener’s Big Wal­nut girls track and field squad, com­ing off a vic­tory in the “Red” Edwards Golden Eagle Relays, cap­tured its sec­ond major meet in a week, out­dis­tanc­ing the 15-team field by 32 1/2 points to win the Bel­laire Relays last Sat­ur­day at Bel­laire High School.

The Golden Eagles, claim­ing 12 top-four fin­ishes, scored 106.50 points in their first-ever appear­ance at the Bel­laire event. Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence rival Watkins Memo­r­ial was scond with 74 points fol­lowed by Wheel­ing Park (66), Mead­ow­dale (59) and Mar­tins Ferry (50).

“What a ter­rific week­end,” Evener exclaimed after the meet. “We haven’t trav­eled on an overnight trip since 2009, and this was a new meet for us as a team; need­less to say, I am pleased with the results. I was floored by the way they worked extremely hard through­out the entire meet – which was ampli­fied by the fact that it was a girls-only meet, not allow­ing for the type of rest and recov­ery nor­mally afforded in an invi­ta­tional – and we kept chip­ping away with top three places and dou­ble scor­ing in a hand­ful of events.”

The Golden Eagles put six sec­onds in the books in the run­ning events. Brea Med­lock was run­nerup in the 400 meters with a time of 1 minute, 0.9 sec­onds while Bethany Bogantz claimed sec­ond in the 800 meters in 2 min­utes, 29.5 sec­onds. The Golden Eagles were sec­ond in four of the seven relay events.

Evener praised the over­all efforts of Shelby Brad­ford and Med­lock in the meet.

“Shelby and Brea were our work­horses,” Evener said. “With pre­lims, semi­fi­nals and finals Shelby ran five races (100 hur­dles, 300 hur­dles and shut­tle hur­dles) and helped the team score a sec­ond and a fourth. The way she stepped up was an excel­lent exam­ple of her lead­er­ship and strength.

“Like­wise, Brea ran six races in her four events (200 dash, 400 dash, 4x200 relay, and 4x400 relay) and placed fourth, sec­ond, sec­ond and third respect­fully in her events,” Evener con­tin­ued. “The thing that con­stantly amazes me about Brea is that she appears to go stronger the more races she runs. Her last quar­ter mile split was a 60-flat – her sixth race of the day – she just blows me away with her ability.”

Liz Carty, Jamie Annis, Olivia Small and Leah Thomas were sec­ond in the 4x100 in 0:51.4 sec­onds; Olivia Small, Annis, Thomas and Brea Med­lock were run­nerups in the 4x200 in 1:48.7; Bogantz, Emily Asher, Makenna Hem­ming and Asia Med­lock were sec­ond in the 4x800 in 10:29.3; and Shelby Brad­ford, Alayna Small, Amber Sha­heen and Annis were sec­ond in the shut­tle hur­dle relay in 1:11.2.

Olivia Small and Lay­laa Craw­ford claimed Big Walnut’s lone firsts, Small tak­ing the long jump at 16 feet, 10 inches and Craw­ford the dis­cus at 105 feet, 7 inches. Small was sec­ond in the high jump at 10 feet.

“Lay­laa had her best throw of the year, a throw that really cre­ated the energy we needed in the early going. It was thrilling to see her face light up,” Evener said. “Olivia not only cap­tured the long jump title to go with a sec­ond place fin­ish in the high jump, but those two per­for­mances gar­nered her the High Point Field Events Award for the meet and a nice lit­tle tro­phy from the meet offi­cials to go with it.”

Big Wal­nut thirds were scored by Jor­dan Lyle in the pole vault (8 feet, 6 inches), Brea Med­lock in the 200 (0:27.4/0:27.1/0:27.1), and by the 1,600 relay squad of Asia Med­lock, Carty, Bogantz and Brea Med­lock (4:15.2).

Evener applauded his Golden Eagles for the way they con­ducted them­selves dur­ing the meet.

“One of the things I am most proud about is the way the ladies con­ducted them­selves dur­ing the week­end and the meet,” he said. “I looked around at the other teams in the stands and not one team cheered on their team­mates, or applauded at the announce­ment of a scor­ing per­for­mance by a team­mate like our girls did. We have a won­der­ful group of girls, and a trip like this will only make their bond stronger.”

BIG WALNUT 79, NEW ALBANY 58 — Big Wal­nut con­tin­ues to pile of vic­to­ries on the girls track and field cir­cuit, defeat­ing rival New Albany in dual meet action waged last Tues­day (April 10) at Golden Eagle Stadium.

Junior Lay­laa Craw­ford and senior Brea Med­lock were dou­ble win­ners for the Golden Eagles who cap­tured 11 of the 17 events in the dual meet decision.

In the field events, Craw­ford won the shot put with a throw of 28 feet, 7 1/2 inches and the dis­cus with a dis­tance of 94–1 1/2. Join­ing Craw­ford with wins in the field events were sopho­more Olivia Small with a leap of 18–2 in the long jump and junior Jor­dan Lyle with a height of 8–6 in the pole vault.

On the track, Med­lock claimed vic­to­ries in both the 400 meters in 1 minute, 1.6 sec­onds and the 200 in 0:27.0 sec­onds. Join­ing Med­lock with wins were senior Shelby Brad­ford in the 100 hur­dles in 0:16.8 sec­onds, junior Leah Thomas in the 100 in 0:13.0 sec­onds and Brit­tany Bogantz in the 800 in 2 min­utes, 34.4 seconds.

Big Wal­nut also pre­vailed in two relay events, win­ning the 400 in 0:52.5 sec­onds, and the 1,600 in 4:19.6.

ASHVILLE KIWANIS INVITATIONAL — Big Wal­nut scored 35 points and placed eighth at the Ashville Kiwa­nis Invi­ta­tional held Fri­day at Teays Val­ley High School.

Indi­vid­ual Golden Eagles lead­ers included Stephanie Keller who placed fourth in the 800 meters in 2 min­utes, 39,37 sec­onds and sixth in the 1,600 in 5:52.04; Kayla Walaszek who took fifth in shot put with a throw of 29 feet, 5 inches; and Saman­tha Godby who fin­ished sixth in the 200 in 0:28.64 seconds.

In the relays, the Golden Eagles’ 1,600 quar­tet of Olivia Daggett, Godby, Keller and Catie Craig-Bowden placed fourth in 4:26.96; the 400 team of Han­nah Boseker, Mikayla Fra­zier, Coral Dan­nett and Maddi Sum­mers fin­ished sixth in 0:59.89; and the 3,200 squad of Godby, Mikaela Smith, Craig-Bowden and Keller placed sixth in 11:07.27.

Chill­i­cothe won the team title with 129 points fol­lowed by West­er­ville South sec­ond with 118 1/2 and Grand­view Heights third with 99 points.

Posted by Gary Henery on Apr 18 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.