Mooney’s 4x100 reaps dividends

By Pete Mollica

Niles placed seventh in the boys event.

COLUMBUS — Cardinal Mooney High’s boys 4x100-meter relay put in a lot of hard work this season and it all paid off Saturday in the Division II track and field championships at Jesse Owens Stadium.

The Cardinals had been getting better as the season progressed and it came to full term Saturday when the team of Ray Vinapol, Braylon Heard, Charles Brown and Matt McWilson captured the state championship.

Their winning time was 42.84 seconds, one of their best of the season.

“There has been a lot of hard work that has gone into this win,” said Vinapol. “We’ve kept working on everything all season long and we’ve had a lot of great help from our coaches.

“We knew there was going to be a lot a good competition today, a lot of fast times, but we felt if we ran our race that we could pull off the win,” added Brown.

“This is exciting and it’s something that we’ve been working for since the season started,” said McWilson.

The race was close as McWilson, who ran the anchor leg, nosed out Kenton High at the wire. Kenton finished in 43.17.

In fact, the seventh place time of Niles was within a second of the Cardinals.

The Red Dragons, who consisted of Ricardo Beltran, Nick Liste, Alex Sava and Robert Sava, finished in 43.92.

“Mooney ran a great race,” said Alex Sava. “We knew it was going to be fast, but we’re happy with our effort today.”

“It’s been a long time since a Niles athlete was on the podium down here and we’re happy just to bring back a place to Niles,” added Beltran.

mollica@vindy.com