Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes. Boardman's Brock Farris battles for position during the Div. I 800m, earning 8th with 1:53.88.

DAYTON — Brock Farris’s work paid off.

All of the pain, long runs and training paid off in the form of a place on the podium at the OHSAA track and field state championships in Dayton.

“Especially this year, I really worked for this. Running all these 800s, preparing for this was a lot,” Farris said. “It means the world to me to come up here and represent my school and team. … This is all the hard work I’ve had in high school.”

Farris finished his career at Boardman with a hard-fought eighth place in the Division I boys 800-meter run. During the race, the five runners between sixth and 10th place each finished within a second of each other.

Farris, who ran a 1:53.88 in the 800-meter final, also competed in the 4×800-meter relay in Dayton; the Spartan team of Farris, fellow senior Ethan Boots, junior David D’Altorio and sophomore Adam Nigro finished 18th with a time of 8:02.95.

“It’s tough,” Farris said of competing in both events. “The 800, it hurts the most. It’s definitely hard to do both. But the thing about that is the 800, it hurts really bad when you’re running it, but when you’re done, it doesn’t take that long to recover. So (with) the race, the recovery wasn’t that bad. But mentally, it’s a lot to do both races.”

Farris said he would characterize his performance at states to be “good” but that he could have done better. His 800-meter final time ended up about a second behind his PR of 1:52.82, which he said could have partially been due to wind.

Nonetheless, Farris is content with what he accomplished at Boardman and is looking forward to continuing his track and field and cross country careers at Youngstown State, to which he signed a letter-of-intent in December.

“I know other kids that run there and I really clicked with them,” Farris said of his decision. “I went on an overnight meet during cross country, and I just loved it. It’s close to home also, so I could still see my team. They also have amazing facilities.”

Farris said that if he had it his way, he would compete as much as possible as a freshman to really experience the college meets.

“I don’t really fit on the team yet, but I do want to run a lot of meets my freshman year. They might redshirt me, though, but I would like to start running a lot of meets right out of the gate.”

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