MORGANTOWN — It’s been a season full of surprises for the Morgantown girls’ 4×800-meter relay team.
After graduating all four members from last year’s relay squad, which captured the Class AAA state championship and set a new MHS record in the event, Morgantown distance coach Mike Ryan found himself filling those crucial slots with four girls who had no experience in the race.
“Honestly, I went into this year thinking we had a good enough team to place at the state meet, but that this realistically would be a build up year,” Ryan said.
Now, just months after Ryan thought matching last season’s success was a near impossibility, his young team enters the state track and field meet poised to do just that. The team, after earning the top finish at its regional meet, enters the race seeded fourth, one second behind top-seeded Musselman.
The team of Anna Epps, Athena Young, Lea Hatcher and Amelia Haddox also own the best time in the state in the event — a 9:37.00 recorded at the OVAC championship meet, where it edged out University by less than a half-second. The mark was also good for a St. Clairsville (Ohio) stadium record and an OVAC 5A all-time record, and is just over three seconds off last season’s school record.
“To see where this group of girls has come, after graduating four girls who all went on to run at the college level, and to bring in four new girls with no experience in the event, to come in and have a team that’s headed into the state meet number one is pretty amazing,” Ryan said. “They have really come along with this team over the last four weeks. They’ve matured and learned to race, and now we have a chance to win it.”
UHS, with Emma Troischt, Emma Williams, Caroline Kirby and Zoe Shetty, owns the second-best time in the state with their mark at the OVAC championships and enter the state meet seventh after a second-place regional finish.
No other team in Class AAA came within 25 seconds of either school’s best this season. The team’s personal best also sits three seconds off the school record — Morgantown and University currently sit within seven seconds of the all-time state record, a 9:30.56 by Winfield in 2016.
“They know what’s in front of them,” UHS coach Ed Frohnapfel said. “I brought up to them that we haven’t won the 4×800 on the girls side since 2012, even with the state cross-country championships in that time. Hopefully we can use that as motivation. “We’re going to have to run faster than the school record to win it — typically when you go down here you have to run 10-12 seconds faster than you have before.
“When we ran that 9:37, I think three of our legs had more to give, so I don’t think it’s outside of the spectrum of possibility.”
For three of the girls on the Morgantown team, freshman Hatcher and juniors Epps and Young, this weekend will be another first-time in a year of track and field milestones for the group. They will all be competing at their first high school state meet — sophomore Amelia Haddox took 11th in the 1,600 run last spring.
“We really work well as a team, and it helps a lot. It’s nice and heartwarming because this is Lea, Anna and mine’s first high school state meet,” Young said. “Anna was never doing distance, she was a sprinter. Last year, I was running six-minute times. Now, I’m in the five-minute range. All of us coming in not knowing what to expect drives us more because it makes us want to rush ourselves.”
The Morgantown girls’ distance contingent is expected to lead the team at the meet. Hatcher and Young join Justice Washington (seeded third in the 400 run) and Morgan Weaver in the top-seeded 4×400 relay, and each sit seeded in the top-two for multiple individual events this weekend. On the boys’ side, Azimbek Turaknahov was MHS’s top qualifier, seeded third in the 300 hurdles.
Top contenders for the Hawks are Sierra Lanham, who enters the long jump seeded second and will also compete in the 100 dash, and Caroline Kirby and Zoe Shetty, who both enter the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 runs seeded in the top-five. Larry Edwards was the top qualifier on the boys’ side, earning the top-seed in the 3,200 run — his time of 9:17.98 is the fastest time by 11 seconds this season in Class AAA, and as a freshman, he is under 30 seconds away from the state record set in 1979.
For the Preston girls, Allie Martin leads the way, seeded sixth in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 runs. The Knights boys will be led by Cole Friend, Trey Smith-Tatham and Jahseer Ward. Friend is seeded top-five in the 1,600 and 3,200 runs, Ward is fourth in high jump, and Smith-Tatham is sixth in the 800 run.
