By David Yon
Thursday was the Region 1 1A meet at FSU. Florida High and Port St. Joe dominated the meet as Florida High won the girls meet and Port St. Joe won the boys. Florida High swept the relays, winning the 4×100, 4×400 and 4×800. Of course the main goal of this meet is to send runners to the state meet. There were lots of double qualifiers and in many instances it appeared some of the athletes were saving their bests for next week’s state meet. Molly Jones qualified in three events the high jump (1st, 5’02”), the long jump (2nd, 16’01.25″) and the triple jump (1st, 36’00.75″). Reggie Quinn from Port St. Joe was the big winner for the boys. Reggie swept the 100 (10.86), 200 (22.21) and the 400 (49.13). Not far behind was Ryan Deak who finished second in the 800 (2:00.72), first in the 1600 (4:25.75) and then 1st in the 3200 (9:19.54, a PR). Ryan’s time was the best in the Big Bend area by a good bit. Kara Newell qualified in the 1600 (2nd, 5:16.26) and first in the 3200 (11:50.63). Kara’s 3200 time was well of her state leading time of 10:58.41. Last year’s state champ, Zita Magloire, won the 1600 race edging Kara out with a time of 5:16.20. Zita also claimed the 800 title with a 2:23.77. Travis Woullard became the third Chenoweth Award winner to qualify in at least two events when he won the discus (162’02”) and shot (52’10”). Herbie Thiele (one of the outstanding panelist at the GWTC lecture series) led the Chiles distance runners by finishing second in the 3200 (10:09.16) and fourth in the 1600 (4:28.48). Matt Katz Pr’ed in the 1600 (4:28.06) to take second and took third in the 3200 (10:09.16) to double. Danny Pellegrino of Maclay qualified in three events 110 hurdles (2nd, 15.61), 300 hurdles (1st, 40.43) and third in the pole vault (13’06.00″). The pole vault and hurdles overlapped and Danny had to leave the pit in-between jumps to run the 110 hurdles. And I could not fail to report that Jessie Close’s daughter Takeyah won the 100 meter hurdles in 16.71 and helped the Florida High 4×100 meter team win. You can find complete results at http://flrunners.com/ . The 4A region meet will be held at FSU on May 3rd.
And speaking of track, this weekend was the Penn Relays. Breeda Dennehy-Willis won another race, the 10,000 in a time of 32:36.50. Unfortunately, there was not much competition there as Breeda won by over two minutes. I suspect she would have like to have someone push her to a time closer to 32:00 flat. And speaking of high school athletes, Dathan Ritzenheim of North Kent has quite a reputation. He lived up to it in this meet running a 13:51.69 to finish second in the Olympic development race.
There is another story on Rose City, but much thanks should go to Jim and Carol Story who put on another great event.