Reason to celebrate: Great weather equals great results at Marion Invite
MARION – You know it’s a good meet, a highly competitive track and field meet, when you don’t even need to win to feel good about yourself.
That was the case Friday for Mansfield Senior’s Maurice Ware and Madison’s Isaac Brooks at the Marion Night Invitational.
Check that, the Marion Perfect Night Invitational.
To celebrate the best weather conditions of the spring, Ware broke the meet high jump record, while Brooks eclipsed the meet record in one race and helped set a school record in another.
And they did so, oddly enough, without coming away with a first.
Ware cleared the winning height of 6-foot-8 in his specialty, setting a personal mark in the process, but Westerville South’s Reign Winston matched that height and had fewer misses to claim the title. Amil Upchurch, Ware’s teammate, was third at 6-6.
The two Tygers looked up the state rankings while standing on the infield and discovered their heights from this meet rank 1-3 right now in Division I.
“For me, the big key was exploding more and keeping my speed,” Ware said. “For (Upchurch), I’d say the same thing. His form was really great. We’ve been working every day in practice on our form.”
Ware cleared 6-10 on his last of three attempts at that height, but his heel clipped the crossbar and knocked it off the uprights on his way down.
Had he made it cleanly over the bar, Ware not only would have won the event, but he would have matched the state championship height of former Tyger Joe Ellis in 2017.
“We’re going to get that,” Upchurch said.
“We definitely are,” Ware agreed.
The two Tygers have been nearly inseparable this season. They tied for first at 6-2 under rough conditions in the 89th Mehock Relays and then both cleared the winning height of 6-4 last week at the Tiffin Invitational. So they keep ascending.
Last year, Ware won an Ohio Cardinal Conference title and then Upchurch got him the following week at districts for the championship before eventually moving on to the state meet.
At this rate, it would be a shock if they didn’t both make it to Columbus.
“I’d say we’re a little ahead of where we expected,” Upchurch said. “We had a slow start to the season because of the weather. We live in Ohio, so it’s tough. But we’re in a really good spot right now and I like where we’re going to be in the future.”
Friday’s 110 hurdles and 300 hurdles saw Brooks go head-to-head with Big Walnut’s Alec Carr, his school’s only entry in the meet.
Carr, ranked No. 1 in the state in the 110 highs, beat Brooks by a 14.12 to 14.60 margin. In the 300 intermediates, where Brooks was ranked No. 1, both cracked 38 seconds to break the meet record, but Carr caught the Madison senior at the last hurdle to win 37.53 to 37.70.
It was the first time Brooks has been under 38 seconds, and he just missed Frank Douglas’ school record of 37.65.
Brooks also anchored Madison’s 4x200 relay to a school-record time of 1:31.13, good for third. He collaborated with Noah Finley and brothers Phil and Joe Stupka.
“I had him (Carr in the 300s), but I overstrided too much,” Brooks said. “I need to get more confidence with my left leg. I lead with my right leg, but once my body gets tired I lose confidence in my left leg.”
In the 110s, where he just missed the state podium last year, Brooks needs to get over a mental hurdle.
“When I race (good) competition, it’s a psychological thing,” he said. “If someone gets ahead of me, I start to push a little too much.”
Brooks, who won a Mehock gold medal in the 300s, finished third in that race at state last year.
Carr, also a senior, placed seventh in the 110s.
Their battles Friday night represented sportsmanship at its finest, with the two laughing together, looking up their times on the site posting “live” results, and even embracing a couple of times.
When they learned they had broken the meet mark in the 300s they were all smiles.
“He came here (tonight) just to race me,” Brooks said of Carr being his team’s lone representative in the meet. “He said he had to find a race, so he came here (to Marion).
“I’m glad he came. He’s a great guy. I just need to keep building for the end of the year.”
Like Carr, Colonel Crawford senior Katie Ruffener was the lone entry from her school. She single-handedly scored 40 points to finish ninth in the 14-team field by winning the 100 hurdles (14.07) and 100 meters (12.81) back-to-back – shades of Erin Ebner, star on Crawford’s three-peat state championship teams of the early 1990s – to go along with firsts in the 200 (25.37) and long jump (17-6½).
A quadruple winner on a consistent basis, it’s going to be tough for Ruffener to top what she did a week earlier by setting the Division III state record in the 100 hurdles with her time of 13.98 at the Crawford County Meet.
“Life hasn’t really changed much,” she said, laughing. “Just back to training hard like I always do.”
The Iowa State commit never envisioned anything like this at the start of her varsity career.
“My freshman year I never really thought I’d break 15 (seconds), so breaking 14 is huge,” she said. “My goal after indoor season was 13.6, so I’m not quite there yet. I PRed early, earlier than I thought.”
Ruffener’s win in the 200 came at the expense of Madison runner-up Alexsia Davis. But the Rams senior, headed for Bowling Green, didn’t come away empty-handed. She won the 400 in 1:00.29.
This is her first year running the metric quartermile, and to say she was reluctant at first would be an understatement.
“The 200 is my race, but the 400 is catching up,” she said. “It’s a brutal race, but I feel like I’m going to embrace it as long as I keep PRing in it. It’s definitely a mental game. If I put my mind to it I can go very far.”
The Lexington girls rode early wins in the 4x800 and 4x200 relays to the team championship in the 14-team field, scoring 96.5 points to outdistance Columbus Bexley (79) and Westerville South (69.5). Fremont Ross was fourth (67), followed by The Columbus School for Girls (62) and Madison (50.5).
Lex’s 4x800 crew of Elyana Weaver, Julia Wyant, Emily Miller and Karis Hunter won in 9:59.76. The 4x200 team followed suit, with sisters Emily and Sarah Thomas joining forces with Makenna Arnholt and Lauren Alexander to win in 1:46.59.
Lex also got a first from junior Josalynn Patterson in the 300 hurdles (48.34).
“Usually this is a big meet and you get to go against the Columbus schools and against Harding on a fast track,” coach Michelle Smith said. “We’ve come here for years. We love this track.
“It’s a good meet to push ourselves and see where we’re at and get better times. I tell the girls to go for it because this is a fast track.”
Emily Thomas, a freshman, has made a huge impact on Lex’s sprint relays.
“I think this is the fastest I’ve ever had a 4x2 team run,” Smith said.
The Harding boys won on their home track, nipping Westerville South 107-105 for the title. Rounding out the top five were Olentangy Liberty (82.5), Lexington (76) and Ashland (73).
Lex got wins from senior Leyton Nossa in the shot put (46-6½), sophomore Carter Newman in the discus (145-9) and the 4x800 team of Ethan Slone, TJ Thompson, Cooper Schurig and Ethan Peebles (8:20.63), which won by nearly 20 seconds.
Ontario produced three champions. On the boys side, junior Miles Meisse won the 800 in a school-record time of 1:57.16. For the girls, freshman Avaia Francis was part of a three-way tie for first in the high jump (5-0) and senior Ellie Maurer won the 800 (2:24.18).
It’s been a big month for Maurer, who a couple of weeks ago committed to the University of Louisville.
Ironically, her older sister, Grace, who competes for Loyola University in Chicago, had a meet at Louisville this weekend.
“The coach reached out to me over direct message on Instagram,” Maurer said. “I just happened to be checking my messages that day and thought, I’ll totally look into that. I had it narrowed down to Akron and Cleveland State. I started talking to him and took a visit and it was everything I could ask for. I loved it so much.”
Maurer’s cross country and track career has been marred by injuries, but so far, so good this spring.
“This is the best I’ve felt since my freshman year, honestly,” she said. “I’m on Cloud Nine.”
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Reason to celebrate: Great weather equals great results at Marion Invite
