Staff photo / Preston Byers Mineral Ridge’s Josiah Toth carries the baton during the boys 4x800-meter relay at Tuesday’s MVAC Scarlet Track and Field Championships at Springfield High School.

NEW MIDDLETOWN — Entering the final event of Tuesday’s Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference (MVAC) Scarlet Track and Field Championships at Springfield High School, the Mineral Ridge boys, clinging to a 3.5-point lead, needed to outplace McDonald in the 4×400-meter relay to earn its second consecutive championship.

Fortunately for them, and despite a less-than-ideal start to the race, the Rams finished a little less than two seconds ahead of the Blue Devils for second place, clinching the league title with 150.5 points. McDonald finished with 145 points and host Springfield, which placed third, had 81.5.

“They knew what the point total was. They knew who they had to beat,” Mineral Ridge head coach Ron Toth said. “Those are guys that, when push comes to shove, you want them with you in a foxhole. You want them with you on the front lines.”

Josiah Toth, running the second leg of the 4×400, erased the deficit the Rams found themselves in after the first 400 meters. This came after running three events earlier in the day, including the 4×200 relay as a substitute.

“There’s always pressure when it’s on the line to win, but, I don’t know, I think we had a lot of trust in what we had done before. It was pretty exciting,” Josiah Toth said. “[I knew I had to] get out hard the first 100 and then try to reel them in.”

The championship victory is Mineral Ridge’s second in a row after edging out McDonald by 10 points a year ago for the Rams’ first league title since 1998.

“God’s been kind to us,” Ron Toth said. “Honestly, there’s six athletes that should have been on this track tonight, but because of injuries and other issues, were not on this track tonight. So these young men, the sophomores, started filling in the gaps. … We have sophomores that are stepping up, and there’s some amazing things that they did just in their own right. But these guys (Josiah Toth and Kaden Shaffer) lead well. They’re the kind of guys that you want to point to and go, ‘Hey, that’s what they do.’ They’re quiet leaders, but they’re manly leaders.”

MCDONALD GIRLS CONTINUE RUN

While the McDonald boys were unable to capture the conference championship, the girls cruised to another league crown.

With 145 team points, the Blue Devils had long secured the victory by the time the event concluded in New Middletown. Mineral Ridge, which finished in second place, earned 99 points, while Springfield tallied 98.

“I think it’s something that we’ve prided ourselves on for decades at our school,” McDonald coach Louis Domitrovich said of the all-around success. “And that idea of depth is something that’s real important. We’ve got sprints, we’ve got hurdles, we’ve got throws, we’ve got distance. That’s important to us as a team.”

While the Devils benefited in almost every aspect of the meet, they specifically built a sizable lead with first-place finishes in the field events.

Emma Bundy set a new meet record with her discus-winning throw of 135-08. Halle Kuntz also broke the meet’s high jump record, winning with a 5-foot jump, and Cierra Shiley earned the title in the shot put with a top throw of 38-04.25.

“We had a lot of senior leadership pop up, and I think that really helped with a lot of different things,” Domitrovich said. “We’re a little dinged up here and there, but the throws, my goodness – Cierra Shiley and Emma Bundy, with the distances that they had today in the shot put and discus … they threw well today.”

CAPPUZZELLO’S TRIPLE CROWN

McDonald’s Joey Cappuzzello and Springfield’s Alexandria Fiumara earned the meet’s boys and girls MVP awards, respectively.

While Fiumara, a freshman, ran four events – the 400, 800, 1600 and 4×400 relay – and won one (the 4×400), the senior Cappuzzello swept the three events in which he participated and set two meet records in the process.

Cappuzzello ran the 800 and 1600 in 2:00.43 and 4:27.18, winning and becoming the new MVAC Scarlet meet recordholder in both. He finished off the day with a win in the 3200, during which he pulled away from his younger brother, Owen, over the final lap for a time of 10:32.91.

“This year I’m definitely a stronger runner,” Joey Cappuzzello said. “I think I have more foot speed than I have in the past, and just overall, I think I’ve always been a decent distance guy who can just kind of hold a pace, but this year, I think I’m able to shift gears when I need to and really make a move during that last lap.

“Especially in the 16, I knew Nate [Yon] was going to take it out pretty quick, so I was just going to sit on him for a while. And then when I felt like the time was right, I just felt like I had to go, and I did, and it worked out. And then the 32, I was kind of feeling it from that 800, so I kind of just let the other guys kind of control the pace, and when my brother made the move with about 800 to go, I just had to hang on. And then with about 300, I just outkicked him and was able to finish first.”