BEAVER TOWNSHIP — The Curbstone Coaches concluded their 2024-25 season Monday by honoring the area’s state high school spring sports individual and team champions at Avion Banquet Center.

Individual titlists included Savannah Nign of Beaver Local, winner of the Division II seated 400-meter dash; McDonald’s Drew Zajac, who captured the Division III discus event; and Ethan Bosch of Southington, who was victorious in the 100-meter dash, also in Division III.

Also honored were members of the McDonald boys track and field team, whose 31 total points was good enough to tie Huron High School for the Division III crown.

Nign is headed to Edinboro University in the fall where she will be a member of both the Fighting Scots’ track and basketball squads.

She became the first seated winner from the tri-county area by winning the 400-meter race (126.16), placed second in the 100 and 800 then garnered a third-place finish in the shot put.

To top off a busy month of June this past weekend, Nign proceeded to win the 100 and 400 at nationals, which were held at prestigious Hayward Field on the campus of the University of Oregon.

“It is humbling to be the first-ever seated champion from the tri-county area,” Nign told the group. “At state, it was tiring by the end of the day but the adrenaline rush at Jesse Owens Stadium is second to none.”

Zajack fought back injuries a good portion of the season to win the discus, becoming the Blue Devils’ 15th throwing champion regardless of gender and 71st individual champion overall.

He is the lone Blue Devil this year to be both an individual and team titleist.

His toss of 178-03 was nearly three feet better than runner-up Aiden Ewald (175-05), of Hopewell-Loudon, and almost four feet in front of third-place Parker Bowe (174-08), of Malvern.

“It feels great to be both an individual and team champion, and I am elated just to be a small part of our success,” Zajack said. “It takes a lot of practice, lifting, hard work, determination, trust in my coaches and faith in the good Lord above but it is worth the effort.”

Bosch won the 100 by clocking a 10.76, edging out runner-up Cole Kaiser (10.88), of St. Henry, to become Chalker’s first state champion in program history.

“Midway through the season I felt like I could contend for a state championship,” Bosch said. “My running coach, Michael Shipman, was a great help. He created more speed workouts as opposed to broken 400 repeats, and that seemed to work best for me.”

For McDonald, its state title was the third overall for the school – it also won in 1999 and 2011 – finishing as runners-up in 2021 and again in 2022.

They are one of just 32 schools in the state dating back to 1908 with three or more championships.

“We didn’t finish last season like we had hoped, but knew we had our top three scorers coming back, so the goal was to get back to state,” said Carson Klase, who finished second to Landon Eyre, of Whiteoak, in the 1600. “It’s incredibly special growing up in McDonald and seeing those multiple championships. You dream of adding another championship trophy to the case, then actually doing it is a tremendous feeling.”

Klase joined Joey Cappuzzello, Josh Krumpak and Eddie Baldwin as members of the runner-up 4×800-meter relay squad (8:01.38).

Head coach Pete Domitrovich said this decade has been special for the Blue Devils’ track and field squad, having finished as team runners-up in both 2021 and 2022 after COVID claimed the 2020 event.

“The Aerosmith song, ‘Dream On,’ says ‘You got to lose to know how to win,’ and while that 2020 team was one of our best ever, COVID cost us a chance at a title,” Domitrovich said. “Our 2021 and 2022 teams did everything possible to try to bring back a state title but fell short. We didn’t do well as a team last year but 365 days later we are now champions.

“The idea of the journey is important. As coaches at McDonald, we share the athletes with our junior high and middle school coaches, and that is especially important. My sister, Jeannette, has coached for 45 years and she preps them while I reap the benefits.”

The group will open their 2025-26 season on Sept. 8 with Ron Strollo, YSU executive director of intercollegiate athletics, set to serve as guest speaker.