Small, Thomas lead BW in 2013 indoor track debut at OWU

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

Olivia Small and Leah Thomas picked up where they left off last sea­son as Big Wal­nut opened its 2013 Girls Indoor Track Sea­son for vet­eran coach Joe Evener on Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 27, at the 16-team Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity Indoor Meet held in Gor­don Field House on the OWU Campus.

Led by Small and Thomas, the Golden Eagle field event com­peti­tors made their sea­son debuts with a strong over­all per­for­mance. Small set school records in cap­tur­ing the long jump (18 feet, 7 1/2 inches) and the triple jump (35–8). She also placed sec­ond in the high jump (5–1/4). Thomas, who had a solid per­for­mance in the run­ning events, added a sec­ond behind Small in the triple jump (30–9) while Avery Kerns placed fifth in the high jump (4–8 1/4). In the shot put. Han­nah Grif­fith impressed with a throw of 29–2 1/4 to take fifth place.

“I can’t say enough about the suc­cess coach (Mike) Ryder and his jumpers had at the meet with two firsts, two sec­onds and a fifth was just spec­tac­u­lar.” Evener said. “I was also par­tic­u­larly excited about Hannah’s shot put efforts. Hav­ing her throw in the 29-foot range this early will ben­e­fit the team greatly, not only dur­ing the indoor sea­son, but also the out­door sea­son. The work she and coach (Dora) Riggs have put into get­ting her tech­nique down pat has already paid off.”

On the track, Thomas turned in a solid effort by plac­ing in three events. She won the 60-meter dash (8.23/8:21 sec­onds) while anchor­ing the vic­to­ri­ous 4x200 relay team, which included Asia Med­lock, Olivia Daggett and Sam Godby, to a win­ning time of 1 minute, 57.80 sec­onds. Thomas was also sec­ond in the 200 (0:29.52)

Also plac­ing for Big Wal­nut were the 4x400 relay team of Med­lock, Daggett, Godby and Kerns which placed sec­ond in 4:45.85; Leah Vier­tel who placed fourth in the 3,200 (15:32.45); Med­lock who was fourth in the 400 meters (1:08.98); and MaKenna Hem­ming, Sarah Bickel, Madi­son Bayer and Erin Lan­ning who fin­ished fourth in the 4x400 (5:41.36).

Round­ing out the day for the Golden Eagles were Daggett, sixth in the 400 (1:10.72); Godby, eighth in the 400 (1:13.13); and Hem­ming, eighth in the 1,600 (6:21.54).

“This was such a good first meet for us in so many ways,” Evener said. “We were able to get 20 girls into this meet, eight of whom are new to the team or new to indoor track. I felt like the work we have put in dur­ing Decem­ber and Jan­u­ary really paid off in our first meet of the year.”

Evener praised the per­for­mances of his return­ing upperclassmen.

“Obvi­ously we were led by our three return­ing upper­class­men Asia, Leah and Olivia. They set the tone for our over­all suc­cess,” he noted. “Their lead­er­ship on the track and in the field will help guide us dur­ing Feb­ru­ary as we get into the heart of our schedule.”

The vet­eran coach added that the OWU meet was good for new­com­ers to the Big Wal­nut program.

“With only 16 teams involved at the meet, I believe it was a good show­ing and a good oppor­tu­nity to intro­duce the sport of indoor track to the new­com­ers with­out the over­whelm­ing sen­sa­tion they might get at the larger meets we will be going to over the next few weeks.”

In the first State Indoor Rank­ings for 2013, four Golden Eagles are ranked in the top ten in their respec­tive events, includ­ing Small who is ranked first in the triple jump, sec­ond in the long jump and 10th in the high jump; and Thomas who is ranked ninth in the triple jump.

Big Walnut’s next sched­uled meet is Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 9, at 7 p.m. in the French Field House at The Ohio State University.

Posted by Gary Henery on Feb 6 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.