NEW PARIS – The Arcanum and Franklin Monroe track and field teams brought home trophies from the Blazer Relays on Tuesday at National Trail.
“This is a fun meet for us,” Arcanum track and field coach Chris Kessler said.
And that is what the Blazers are – a fun event early in the season for local track teams.
Because each event is a relay, that makes for plenty of opportunities for coaches to get their athletes on the track and see what they can do. At a conventional invitational schools are generally limited to just two athletes per event. But at National Trail the bigger schools at times fielded two relay teams per event – getting up to eight athletes involved. So everyone got to see some action.
Twin Valley South boys and girls swept the meet while Arcanum boys and girls were runners-up. But the Franklin Monroe girls did tie Arcanum so the Lady Jets got a runner-up trophy as well.
As part of this being a fun meet the final race is the Iron Men and Iron Women’s races. The shot and disc folks are generally restricted to the field events. So this was a unique opportunity for the shot putters and discus throwers to show off their skills in a 4×100 relay. The Franklin Monroe iron women – Nicole Berry, Tara Goubeaux, Hannah Eley and Grace Fee – won their race. On the boys side Tri-Village was the winner with Tanner Jones, Carson Shahan, Noah Hill and Logan Kirk.
Franklin Monroe’s sprint medley team of Kirsten Zink, Danielle McVey, Allyson Masterson and Selene Weaver won. Arcanum’s shuttle hurdle team won likewise with Paige Kreusch, Isabella Whiting, Logan Garbig and Trinity Layman. The girls long jump was won by Arcanum’s Logan Garbig, Mara Wetzel and Trinity Layman. Girls shot and discus was won by Franklin Monroe’s Hannah Eley, Tara Goubeaux and Nicole Berry.
On the boys side, Tri-Village won the 4x100m relay with Austin Bruner, Josh Hollinger, Jared Quigney and Gavin Richards. Arcanum’s 4×800 team of Isaac Stephens, Chance Klipstine, Justin Vanatta and Tanner Delk was victorious. Arcanum won the distance medley with Tanner Delk, Jacob Osswald, Michael Scott and Wills Troutwine.
The Arcanum coach was happy with both teams performance.
“Our distance has done well for us,” Kessler said. “It’s early in the season, and it’s cool, so everyone is dealing with these same conditions. It is a hard meet for our distance runners because we did run hard at practice yesterday, but they still did well. This is a fun meet for us – we can get all our kids involved. We were disappointed in the 4×200 – they were disqualified because of a bad hand off. We are young in the sprints, but we have maturity with upper classmen at distance.”
Arcanum does return some good athletes for this season – Isaac Stephens is a distance runner who has committed to the University of Rio Grande where he will continue his running career.
Marcy Bradshaw is a senior distance runner who is expected to contribute in the 400 meter, 800 meter and 1,600 meter races. Kessler is hoping that she will be able to advance to state this season. She has gone to state in cross country. She also wants to run at the college level but has not decided upon a college yet.
Tanner Delk is also a distance runner that is expected to do well this season. He does the 1,600 meter and 3,200 meter runs. So Arcanum will be strong in the distance events this spring.
