Aurora girls track and field overcomes youth to repeat as John Kudley Invitational champs
AURORA — The Greenmen were the returning champions at their home invitational Friday night.
Still, the Aurora girls track and field team hardly felt like a favorite.
With many times more freshmen and sophomores (43) than upperclassmen (six), and a new coach to boot, it was hard to know what to expect from the Greenmen.
According to first-year coach Greg Cicero, top two was his goal.
He’ll happily take top one, though, as Aurora held off runner-up Mayfield 153-138 to snag its second straight John Kudley Invitational title Friday night at Veterans Stadium.
“This team's a lot different than the team they had last year,” Cicero said. “Last year, they had Lauren Tincher, Morgan Schmitt, who were just studs. I mean, they were fantastic All-Ohio athletes, and for us to come out with I think we ran 18 kids that have not run invitationals before tonight and so to get them out there and get them experience and then for them to perform the way they did is awesome.”
For Kassidy Fry, who picked up two of the Greenmen’s five titles and is one of the team’s few upperclassmen, the team championship was not one to take for granted.
“I definitely think it was really cool for all of us,” Fry said. “I know we have so many young people on our team, so many freshmen coming in that are doing so well, like Isabella Cicero, and I think we all just really came together and did what we had to do at once, and we ended up beating Mayfield and it was really cool as a team.”
Five first-place finishes is not an overwhelming amount.
Indeed, the runner-up Wildcats had seven.
So how did the Greenmen win the team title?
Well, Aurora was competitive in everything, including the events that Mayfield captured.
For example, while the Wildcats won the 3,200 meters, the Greenmen took second and fourth. As a result, Aurora actually outscored Mayfield 12-10 in the event.
“I definitely think just having two strong people in each event really helped us,” Fry said. “Mayfield won so many events, but us being able to get second and third or third and fourth really just allowed us to take the win today.”
Outside of Fry’s titles in the high jump (5-1) and the 100 hurdles (16.30), Aurora’s other first-place finishes came from senior Grace Barto (800), sophomore Felicite Williams (shot put) and Cicero (400). Cicero also was second in the 100 and 200 and was part of the Greenmen's runner-up 4x400 relay.
Although Aurora's upperclassmen accounted for three of its five first-place finishes, the program's deep reservoir of talented young runners helped get the myriad of second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-place finishes that helped overcome the Wildcats’ higher number of gold medals.
“We're relying completely on the underclassmen,” Greg Cicero said. “They're coming through and getting those secondary points that you can pick up [and] are what help win meets like this.”
This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Aurora girls track overcomes youth to repeat as John Kudley champs
