HUBER HEIGHTS — There’d already been reservations to Columbus that had been made during Wednesday’s first day of the Division I Southwest Regional Track & Field Championships. Friday’s second day of regional competition enabled several more Greene County area student athletes to book their trip to the state championships as well.
Event wins were turned in by Beavercreek distance runners Riley Buchholz (boys 1,600-meter run) and Taylor Ewert (girls 3,200), while Carroll’s Donovan LaJeunesse (boys 300-meter hurdles) and ‘Creek’s Jodie Pierce (girls 800) each claimed runner-up finishes to advance.
Fellow Beavercreek distance phenom Savannah Roark placed third in the girls 3,200-meter run finale, and Beavers teammate Eileen Yang placed third in the pole vault, and Juliann Williams placed fourth in the girls mile run.
Finally in the girls mile relay, the Beavercreek team of Abigail Hobbs, Ashtyn Gluck, Pierce and Williams finished fourth with a time of 3:55.86, just .06 of a second better than Cincinnati Anderson, to advance on to state too.
“That is their best time this season by I think three seconds,” Beavercreek girls coach Howard Russ said, as the mile relay girls continued to celebrate behind him. “They’re very excited. We wanted to beat Princeton, to be regional runners up, but I think we ended up third overall. They ran their hearts out, and the team had a really good day today.”
Beavercreek’s speedy regional record setting quartet of Williams, Pierce, Roark and Ewert had qualified for the state meet in the girls 3,200-meter relay on May 22 with a meet-record time of 9:00.46. Xenia high jumper Meaghan Wakefield had tied for second in Wednesday’s girls high jump competition with a leap of 5 feet, 2 inches to also advance.
The annual state championship track and field meet will take place May 31-June 1 at the famed Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium on the Ohio State University campus, in Columbus.
