The Westlake girls and Rocky River boys won tight team battles May 11 to win their respective championships in the Great Lakes Conference track and field meet at Rocky River High School.
The final outcome in both meets wasn’t determined until the final race of the day, the 4×400-meter relay. While the Pirates punctuated their boys team title by dominating the last event, Westlake’s girls had to win their race and then hope that Rocky River finished no better than third.
Westlake’s team of Sarah Peer, Allison Tabelling, Sydney Peer and Morgan Kress won the 4×400 with a season’s best time of 4:06.26. Early in the final leg it appeared Rocky River could finish second, which would have given the Pirates the team title by a mere half-point, but instead, Fairview and Lakewood both passed River on the backstretch as Westlake clinched its second consecutive GLC crown.
The Demons finished with 147 points to 145½ for Rocky River. Lakewood was third with 122, followed by Bay in fourth with 46. Fairview was fifth with 43½, while Elyria Catholic ended up seventh with 34 and North Olmsted was 10th with 16.
The Rocky River boys ended up with 131 points to 118 1/2 for Bay. Westlake was third with 86, while Elyria Catholic was fourth with 61. The Panthers were led by hurdlers Anthony DeMartinis and Logan Wilhelm, who placed 1-2 in both hurdle races. North Olmsted was sixth with 53 1/2 points, while Fairview was eighth with 38.
PHOTOS: Great Lakes Conference track and field, Day 2, May 11, 2023
“It was a very emotional week,” said first-year Westlake girls coach Leia Crew. “On Tuesday we were trying to qualify as many girls as we could, and I was really nervous. Today we just let the girls run and compete. They’re so competitive. When they see someone in front of them, they just want to hunt them down.”
With a stable full of outstanding distance runners, Westlake’s plan was to score enough points in the longer races to overcome some holes they have in the lineup. The plan almost worked to perfection, as Sarah and Sydney Peer placed 1-2 in the 1,600, Sarah Peer and Maggie Hennessey did the same in the 800, and Kress and Tabeling took the top two places in the 400. Westlake also got a winning effort from Macy Brennan in the discus.
Midway through the 3,200 run it appeared the Demons were on their way to a 1-3 finish, which would have given them a relatively comfortable lead entering the 4x400 relay. Freshman Julia Richards crossed the finish line first and Ellie Irwin was third behind Brianna Chaves of Rocky River. But Richards was disqualified for running inside the line that designates the border of the track. She would have set the meet record, but instead it went to Chaves in 11:20.63.
“Julia is a freshman, and she ran great,” Crew said. “She made a mistake, but it’s a mistake that could happen to anyone. It sucks that it happened today, but she ran a great race. She PRed, and she would have set the meet record. She has three more years, and she’s never going to make that mistake again.”
Suddenly, the Demons were in scramble mode, trying to work through what they had to do to still win the meet.
“I was watching (Julia) run in the 3,200, but I was like, ‘She is literally running over the line,’” said Sydney Peer. “I turned to Sarah and I said, ‘I’m so nervous that she’s going to be DQed.’ And then next lap, the red flag went up. I was about to cry, but I said to the relay, ‘If we can finish first and they get third, we still win the meet. We can do this. Do not panic. Stay calm and run your race.’ We came together and we did awesome. I’m so proud of everyone.”
As is often the case, Sarah Peer led the way for the Demons. The junior anchored Westlake to a state-leading time of 9:20.06 in the 4x800 relay, she won the 1,600 in 5:01.03 and the 800 in a meet record 2:17.14 and she led off the winning 4x400 relay.
“We had a little bit of difficulty in one of the races, but overall the plan worked,” she said. “I’m just thankful that we had the opportunity to come out and try to repeat what we did last year. We didn’t have some of the girls that we had last year that were super-strong, but a lot of girls stepped up today and did what they had to do in order for us to get that top spot.”
It obviously was a disappointing outcome for Rocky River, which entered the day with a 16½ point lead and early in the proceedings was up by 21 1/2 points. But the Pirates were unable to hold off Westlake’s distance crew.
“When I figured out the meet based on what everybody had entered, we were 46 points down,” said River coach Julie Achladis. “I made changes everywhere I could to try to be competitive. It didn’t make a lot of people happy. I pulled kids from the 300 hurdles. I pulled kids from the relays and had them run open events. I did everything I could. I think I made the right decisions, looking at how we went from 46 points down to 1 1/2 down.”
The Pirates finished with four firsts, as Ellie Harkins won the low hurdles and Chaves took the 3,200. On the meet’s first day, Morgyn Cruz won the long jump and Doris Kale topped the field in the shot put.
“I couldn’t be any prouder of the girls,” Achladis said. “I feel bad that my 4x400 is devastated right now. They didn’t do anything wrong. They PRed, and that’s all we wanted from them. Of course, I would rather have won, but everybody knows that Westlake is one of the best programs around. For little Rocky River to be that close, they did a great job.”
For the Rocky River boys, it was the second GLC title in three years. The Pirates were led by senior Guillaume Carroll, who won the 800 in a meet record 1:56.38 and also ran on the winning 4x800 and 4x400 relays that set meet records.
“After years of struggling with injuries for me, I’m just happy to be back helping the team,” Carroll said. “We’re here to win, and we won it all. That’s what we did.”
Things got started well for the Pirates early in the proceedings, as Colin Slomka won the high jump in a jump-off, his first experience with the tiebreaker.
After the victory, Slomka set the tone for the rest of the day, saying, “As long as we beat Bay Village, that’s all I really care about.”
With Brandon Knaack adding the shot put title to the discus crown that he won on Tuesday, the Rockets gradually pulled ahead of their rivals. After the team of Charles Rice, Jayden Perrine, Jace Knapp and Liam O’Leary combined to win the 4x100 relay, Bay was on top, 84½ to 73.
But the next three events were crucial in Rocky River taking the crown. First, the Pirates scored 14 points in the 400 dash to none for Bay, with Grant Preto taking second and Ethan Hazra finishing third. River then scored four points to Bay’s one in the intermediate hurdles and then placed 1-2 in the 800 with Carroll taking honors and Luke Dorenkott finishing second after a wild scramble down the homestretch.
After those three races Rocky River held a lead of 109-91 1/2, and Bay never got closer than eight points the rest of the way.
“The kids did just an outstanding job,” said River coach Mark Hogya. “We talked yesterday about what they had to. We knew they didn’t have to do anything more than what they’re capable of doing. But at the same time, it’s still a matter of getting the job done when you had to. We made a few changes to the lineup, knowing that it was going to be close with Bay. I’m extremely happy for the guys. It’s a great group and they’ve been a great group all season long.”
Perrine led the way for the Rockets, as the freshman placed first in the long jump, 200 and 4x100 relay and also finished third in the 100. Bay also got outstanding efforts from Michael Hanselman in the distance races, as the sophomore finished second in both the 1,600 behind North Olmsted’s Collin Martens and the 3,200 behind Westlake’s Jeremy Snyder.
“All in all, I think the team performed well,” said Bay coach George Curran. “River just was better. There’s not much you can do about that. We did our job for the most part. They just did a better job, so, credit to them.”
