Area produces three state champions

By Pete Mollica

Struthers’ Ashley Galbraith was one of those winning an event on the first day of the meet.

COLUMBUS — The area produced three state champions and a host of qualifiers after the first day of the OHSAA state track and field championship at Jesse Owens Stadium on the campus of Ohio State University.

Three seniors, Nicole Honsaker of Mineral Ridge, Ashley Galbraith of Struthers and KaiCee Kubicina of Newton Falls, produced the opening day state champions for the Valley.

Honsaker, who has a big day ahead of her today, won the Division III long jump with a leap of 18 feet, 1 inch, while Galbraith, an Ohio State track recruit, captured the Div. II high jump (5-7) and Kubicina, on her third trip to state, finally captured the Div. II discus with a career-best throw of 146-5.

While those three took home the top prize, there were several other area athletes who won places in finals Friday.

Southeast’s Nikki Murphy and Salem’s Sarah Brobeck finished second and third to Kubicina in the discus, while Maplewood’s freshman high jumper, Jordan Moxley, took a fourth place in Div. III (5-4).

Lordstown’s Kayla Ellks finished fifth behind Honsaker in the Div. III long jump at 16-11, McDonald’s Emily Dolsak was sixth in the Div. III discus and Brookfield’s Morgan Bonekovic was seventh in the Div. III shot put with a throw of 38-1.

All of the other finals will take place today, including the Div. I field events.

Honsaker will be trying to win three more events today and she has the top qualifying time in both the 100- and 300- meter hurdles.

“I’m so excited about tomorrow, the hurdles are my favorites and I’m looking forward to a couple more good races,’ she said.

Several other area standouts will have multiple chances for state titles today, including East’s James Allen, who qualified in both the 100 and 200, but pulled a hamstring and may not be able to compete today.

“I pulled it in the 100 qualifier,” Allen said. “I was just switching into high gear when I felt it go. I thought it was OK, but it popped up again in the 200.

“I’ve been running so well lately and I’m just hoping that this doesn’t keep me out of the finals tomorrow,” he added.

Even with the pulled hamstring Allen finished with the third-best time in the 100 at 11.0 and the third-best in the 200 at 22.03.

West Branch sophomore Taylor Kring will compete in both the 100 and 300 hurdles in Div. II. She finished in 15.19 in the 100 hurdles and 46.27 in the 300.

There are still 12 relays still alive in the competition, including Ursuline’s 4x200 team which won the state title a year ago in Div. III. The team of Tim’Aira Gandy, Michaela Write, Eliabeth Emanuel and Jasmine Brown struggled somewhat Friday, but still qualified in the event and the same group advanced in the 4x100 relay.

The Irish had the fourth-best qualifying time in the 4x200 and the seventh-best in the 4x100.

“We’ve got some work to do before the finals” said Brown, who is just a sophomore. “We need to work more on our exchanges and we can pick up some time there. We know we’ll run better tomorrow.”

Mooney’s 4x100 relay of Ray Vinapol, Braylon Heard, Charles Brown and Matt McWilson won its heat and had the fastest qualifying time going into the finals of 43.02.

Probably the most excited relay to qualify was Niles’ 4x100 team that finished sixth in its heat, but had the eighth overall fastest qualifying time of 43.76 and earned the final spot in the finals.

The team is made up of Ricardo Beltran, Nick Liste, Alex Sava and Robert Sava.

“All we wanted was a chance and now we got it,” said Robert Sava. “We were pretty down after our heat, but we knew we ran well and then when we got in, it was just unbelievable.”

mollica@vindy.com