Five takeaways from the Norwayne district track & field meet

Here are five takeaways from Friday's Division III Norwayne District track and field meet:

Rootstown, Mogadore represent Portage Trail Conference in fine fashion

Friday night ended the same way the previous Friday night ended.

With Rootstown and Mogadore holding trophies.

After the Rovers and Wildcats finished 1-2, respectively, at last week's Portage Trail Conference Championships, they repeated the feat at Friday's Division III Norwayne District meet.

Senior Jenna Kurtz, a member of numerous relays, said coach Kyle Rodstrom made sure the Rovers didn't take Friday for granted even though they were coming off first-place finishes the week prior at Mogadore and the year prior at Norwayne.

"He was like [you're] fourth and fifth, and I was like, 'No way, Roddy,' and he was like, yeah, and I was like alright. It's crunch time," Kurtz said. "Before every relay, we looked at each other and we're like leave it all on this track, it's senior year, we're doing it for the team and let's get as far as we can and do our best and I think we did that today."

While the Rovers secured their second straight district title, the Wildcats snagged their first district hardware in, well, it's hard to say.

"I would have to look it up," Mogadore coach Kim Kreiner said. "It might have been a while."

Either way, it marked yet another encouraging step forward for a team that is loaded with underclassmen.

"The program continues to go up," Kreiner said. "We've got a good group of younger girls that are completely buying in. They're seeing all the success that we've had over the past couple years, so once you start to see people go to state and push that hard, you kind of want a piece of it, so I see the next three, four, five, six years of this program doing nothing but getting better."

Rovers lean on balance, Wildcats on distance

The 1-2 finish was the same.

So was the road to success.

For the Rovers, they relied on balance.

Sure, Rootstown got a ton of points from its hurdles with senior Marinna Atanmo winning both events by sizable margins and junior Carlee Clifford and sophomore Porter Smith adding fourth-place finishes in the 100 and 300, respectively, for a total of 30 points.

That said, the Rovers picked up points everywhere.

"We scored in almost every event except the two mile maybe," Rodstrom said. "We scored in the mile. We scored in the high jump. We scored in every event but the two mile so again team effort. Every kid did awesome."

Mogadore mounted the majority of its points in the distance relays and middle-distance races. The Wildcats picked up first-place finishes in the 400 (freshman Julie Tompkins), 800 (sophomore Katie Lane) and the 4x400 and 4x800 relays.

"[Katie] had been running the 16 and the 8, but taking a look at the numbers, I think they kind of figured out that her best chance of being successful as an individual was the eight instead of the 1600, so they took her the 800 route," Kreiner said. "Julie Tompkins [is a] stud in the sprints as a freshman. Pretty much handles the pressure so far pretty darn well for being a freshman."

Mogadore senior Mason Murphy bounces back from fall to capture two district titles

It's commonly said that the best thing about losing in baseball is you get to play again the next day.

For Mogadore senior Mason Murphy, it was even quicker. After a hurdle from the next lane was knocked into his path and caused him to fall down the home stretch of the 110 hurdles, Murphy had no time to mourn a lost regional berth.

"Especially after falling at state last year in the 300, I was like reliving those moments again, but obviously, once the ref made their decision, I knew deep down there was nothing I could do to convince them," Murphy said. "I just knew I had to bounce back for the 300."

Before the 300, the senior had to race over to the high jump — and promptly snagged a title there.

"I took a lot of that frustration out in high jump," Murphy said. "I try not to show that frustration. Just let my running do the talking."

Maybe an hour later, Murphy returned to the hurdles and edged Columbia senior Elijah Goodman, 40.57-40.69, for the 300 title.

"He held it together very well," Kreiner said. "He's a very calm, calm kid, handles pressure pretty well and he does it his own way, which is like completely calm. When you look at him, you wouldn't know if anything is bothering him."

Rootstown sophomore Brooklynn McIntyre earns first regional berth in style

Brooklynn McIntyre always considered shot put her best event, but Rovers throws coach Joe Mackle had a funny feeling that the discus might be her best chance at a long postseason run.

So, when McIntyre came two spots shy of advancing to the regional meet in the shot put Wednesday, he told her not to worry even if shot was her favorite event and discus was an event that she didn't even get to compete in at last year's district meet.

"Even going into it, I kept on telling her discus looks good, too," Mackle said. "So it was almost like, yeah, it's not the end of the world [if you don't make it in shot]."

Last year, McIntyre's chances at the discus were limited given she was throwing behind then-seniors Kasidy Smith, who finished fourth in the state discus, and Erica Moore.

On Friday, given an opportunity, McIntyre proved her coach right and demonstrated her vast improvement in the discus by capturing the district title with a toss of 115-05.

"It's an honor honestly," McIntyre said. "It's crazy how I went from getting good at shot and now I'm improving in disc more than shot."

Windham makes huge strides

A year ago, the Bombers had two regional qualifiers: Bert Jones in both jumps and Clay Dean in the discus.

This season, Windham more than doubled that number with five.

The Bombers' success started Wednesday when senior Hannah Murton finished third in the shot (35-01.75). Windham wasted little time Friday as well, with freshman Devon Reagan shaving an absurd 15 seconds off his seed time with a 39.97 in the seated 100.

Meanwhile, Bert Jones qualified for his second straight regional meet with a third-place finish in the high jump and fellow senior Miki Jones added a third-place finish in the long jump. Junior Asya Woods capped the day by shaking off a tough performance at last season's district meet with a runner-up finish in this year's 400 (1:00.74).

Team Scores

Boys: 1. Norwayne 123, 2. East Canton 97, 3. Columbia 60, 4. Rittman 54, 5. Dalton 51, 8. Mogadore 32, 12. Windham 16

Girls: 1. Rootstown 81, 2. Mogadore 69, 3. Dalton 61, 4. Rittman 58, 5. Mapleton 46, 16. Windham 14

Individual finishes

All of the below top four finishers advanced to the Perry regional.

Boys 100: 1. Miguel Gonzalez (Wellington) 11.27, 2. Brady Lendon (Norwayne) 11.273, 3. Uzair Beg (Lake Ridge Academy) 11.277, 4. Austin Jones (East Canton) 11.392

Boys 200: 1. Uzair Beg (Lake Ridge Academy) 22.29, 2. Miguel Gonzalez (Wellington) 22.584, 3. Roman Portis (Norwayne) 22.590, 4. Evan Hudson (Oberlin) 22.76

Boys 400: 1. Sam Sikorski (Columbia) 50.61, 2. Evan Hudson (Oberlin) 51.48, 3. Richard Schieferstein (Open Door) 51.67, 4. Mason Booth (Norwayne) 51.72

Boys 800: 1. Max Grillo (Canton Central Catholic) 1:58.08, 2. Nick Martino (East Canton) 1:58.41, 3. Landen Demos (East Canton) 2:01.41, 4. Alejandro Navarrete (Mogadore) 2:03.29

Boys 1600: 1. Gabe Shilling (East Canton) 4:31.67, 2. Ian Paul (Canton Central Catholic) 4:38.45, 3. Michael Couture (Open Door) 4:43.70, 4. Frank Washburn (Columbia) 4:48.73

Boys 3200: 1. Brylan Holland (East Canton) 9:43.53, 2. Gabe Shilling (East Canton) 10:09.72, 3. Isaik Schoch (Mapleton) 10:13.42, 4. Michael Couture (Open Door) 10:30.40

Boys 110 Hurdles: 1. Brennan Betz (East Canton) 15.47, 2. Paul Werle (Rittman) 15.79, 3. Elijah Goodman (Columbia) 16.04, 4. Connor Preattle (Norwayne) 16.37

Boys 300 Hurdles: 1. Mason Murphy (Mogadore) 40.57, 2. Elijah Goodman (Columbia) 40.69, 3. Paul Werle (Rittman) 41.66, 4. Adam Soehnlen (Dalton) 42.28

Boys Seated 100: 1. Devon Reagan (Windham) 39.97

Boys 4x100: 1. Norwayne 43.89, 2. Dalton 44.41, 3. Wellington 44.61, 4. Mapleton 45.63

Boys 4x200: 1. Norwayne 1:32.30, 2. Columbia 1:33.75, 3. Dalton 1:34.26, 4. Wellington 1:34.46

Boys 4x400: 1. Columbia 3:28.03, 2. East Canton 3:28.25, 3. Canton Central Catholic 3:31.96, 4. Open Door 3:32.06

Boys 4x800: 1. East Canton 7:59.65, 2. Columbia 8:24.67, 3. Canton Central Catholic 8:25.82, 4. Mapleton 8:27.59

High Jump: 1. Mason Murphy (Mogadore) 6-02.00, 2. Evan Rastorfer (Rittman) 6-02.00, 3. Bert Jones (Windham) 6-00.00, 4. Dylan Fenton (Loudonville) 6-00.00

Boys Pole Vault: 1. Nic Graham (Norwayne) 12-04.00, 2. Caleb Erhard (Norwayne) 12-04.00, 3. Connor Groghan (East Canton) 12-00.00, 4. Nathan Cilona (East Canton) 12-00.00

Boys Long Jump: 1. Isaiah Portis (Norwayne) 20-06.75, 2. Evan Rastorfer (Rittman) 19-11.00, 3. Miki Jones (Windham) 19-11.00, 4. Nic Graham (Norwayne) 19-08.25

Boys Shot Put: 1. Tyler Thompson (Rittman) 63-04.75, 2. Colby Morlock (Norwayne) 62-00.50, 3. Dillon Morlock (Norwayne) 61-04.75, 4. Brock Lengacher (Smithville) 49-00.75

Boys Discus: 1. Colby Morlock (Norwayne) 182-04, 2. Dillon Morlock (Norwayne) 174-06, 3. Quentin Lehman (Dalton) 152-09, 4. Brock Lengacher (Smithville) 135-09

Girls 100: 1. Medgine Wojton (LCC) 12.35, 2. Lauren Clos (Dalton) 12.59, 3. Brianna Chenevey (Dalton) 12.63, 4. Jillian Carrick (Mapleton) 12.76

Girls 200: 1. Medgine Wojton (LCC) 25.38, 2. Brianna Chenevey (Dalton) 25.52, 3. Lauren Clos (Dalton) 25.75, 4. KyAra Ross (Aquinas) 26.15

Girls 400: 1. Julie Tompkins (Mogadore) 1:00.69, 2. Asya Woods (Windham) 1:00.74, 3. Claire Haas (Smithville) 1:00.99, 4. Maddy Lengacher (Smithville) 1:01.14

Girls 800: 1. Pyper Gibson (Rittman) 2:19.69, 2. Katie Lane (Mogadore) 2:23.81, 3. Merrick Gibson (Rittman) 2:25.26, 4. Rachel Whetstone (Mogadore) 2:25.32

Girls 1600: 1. Pyper Gibson (Rittman) 5:06.00, 2. Madeleine Finton (Columbia) 5:11.31, 3. Merrick Gibson (Rittman) 5:25.36, 4. Tess Schultz (Loudonville) 5:26.21

Girls 3200: 1. Pyper Gibson (Rittman) 11:28.59, 2. Kylee Gray (Waynedale) 11:38.73, 3. Madeleine Finton (Columbia) 11:48.57, 4. Audrey Wade (East Canton) 12:03.82

Girls 100 Hurdles: 1. Marinna Atanmo (Rootstown) 15.39, 2. Skye Morris (Waynedale) 16.55, 3. Ainsley Hamsher (Orrville) 16.65, 4. Carlee Clifford (Rootstown) 16.66

Girls 300 Hurdles: 1. Marinna Atanmo (Rootstown) 45.72, 2. Corri Vermilya (Loudonville) 48.92, 3. Skye Morris (Waynedale) 49.44, 4. Porter Smith (Rootstown) 49.71

Girls 4x100: 1. Dalton 50.55, 2. LCC 50.85, 3. Mapleton 51.07, 4. Rootstown 52.12

Girls 4x200: 1. LCC 1:48.64, 2. Rootstown 1:48.97, 3. Loudonville 1:49.87, 4. Smithville 1:50.94

Girls 4x400: 1. Mogadore 4:09.84, 2. Dalton 4:14.30, 3. Smithville 4:15.39, 4. Wellington 4:17.51

Girls 4x800: 1. Mogadore 9:54.73, 2. Waynedale 9:55.26, 3. Loudonville 10:06.22, 4. Rittman 10:06.78

High Jump: 1. Abby Hartzler (Smithville) 5-01.00, 2. Joyce Stallard (Wellington) 5-00.00, 3. Jule Stoller (Northwestern) 4-11.00, 4. Vivi Cesar (Dalton) 4-10.00

Pole Vault: 1. Ainsley Hamsher (Orrville) 12-03.00, 2. Catrina Race (Orrville) 10-00.00, 3. Jillian Carrick (Mapleton) 9-00.00, 4. Sarah Hiestand (Aquinas) 8-06.00

Long Jump: 1. KyAra Ross (Aquinas) 17-04.50, 2. Bella Tabler (Mapleton) 16-07.00, 3. Sydney Polen (Loudonville) 16-07.00, 4. Madison Bailey (Mapleton) 16-06.75

Shot Put: 1. Emily Thompson (Northwestern) 38-00.75, 2. Brooklyn Beckford (Mogadore) 35-06.25, 3. Hannah Murton (Windham) 35-01.75, 4. Faith Garrod (Waynedale) 34-00.75

Discus: 1. Brooklynn McIntyre (Rootstown) 115-05, 2. Hunter Piteo (Mapleton) 108-08, 3. Emily Thompson (Northwestern) 108-01, 4. Chase Amlotte (Northwestern) 103-11

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Rootstown, Mogadore finish 1-2 at Norwayne District track meet