Minster’s girls track squad has finished as Division III runner-up three consecutive years, including a narrow second-place finish to Anna last year. The Wildcats will try for gold this year during the state track and field meet on Friday and Saturday at Jesse Owens Stadium in Columbus.
The Wildcats have 12 girls who qualified for the state meet either individually or as part of a relay. They’re just a few of the over 40 area girls who qualified for the meet.
The running prelims are Friday and the finals are Saturday.
The top two in each heat and the next five fastest times in the prelims will advance to Saturday’s finals.
Minster’s Emma Watcke has run the fastest time in the 1,600-meter run of all Div. III athletes in the state heading into the meet. Her fastest time this year is 5:01.59. Watcke also runs the 4×800 relay, which has the fastest time this season (9:23.63) of Div. III teams.
Watcke also qualified in the 3,200 meter run. She won the regional meet last week in Troy with a time of 11:13.
Madeline Magoto and Cassie Francis finished number one and two, respectively, in the 800-meter run in regionals and should do well at state. Magoto had the fastest qualifying time of all Div. III athletes (2:16.73) while Francis had the second fastest (2:17.11).
Fort Loramie had eight girls qualify for state individually or as a part of a relay. Kennedi Gephart qualified in both the 200-meter and 400-meter dash and also as a member of the 4×200 relay. Gephart was one of seven girls who qualified in the 200 with 57 seconds. She ran in 57.84. Dakota Stamm of Archbold had the fastest regional time (57.02).
New Bremen has five individuals and one relay which qualified for the state meet. Julia Goettemoeller qualified in both the 4×400 relay and in the 300 hurdles.
Botkins Grace Homan qualified in discus and shot put, while Adriana Jutte qualified in 300 hurdles.
Lehman Catholic’s relays positioned to make runs at state titles in the Division III competition.
Lehman’s 400 relay (Lauren McFarland, Lindsey Magoteaux, Rylie McIver, Alanna O’Leary) are tied for the fastest time with West Liberty-Salem at 49.85. WL-S beat them by five-thousands of a second at the regional.
Division II preview
Versailles has several relays ranked highly for the Div. II meet.
Both the 800 relay (Cassie Peters, Liz Watren, Ali Moran, Ellen Peters) and the 1,600 relay (Watren, Lindsey Winner, Kenia McEldowney, Ellen Peters) have the third fastest times in 1:44.62 and 4:00.07, respectively.
Lucy Prakel has the fourth best vault in the pole vault (11-6) while McEldowney has the 13th fastest time in the 800 (2:18.88). Prakel will compete in the pole vault on Saturday morning.
Anna’s Hannah Shoemaker, who helped the Rockets win the Div. III title last year, qualified in two events in Div. II this year.
Shoemaker will compete in both 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles. She was second in both events in the D-II regional at Piqua’s Alexander Stadium. Among all state qualifiers, she has the seventh fastest time in the 300 hurdles (45.31).
