AMHERST, Ohio -- Rocky River had five athletes make their way through the May 19-21 district qualifying stage, and those five Pirates are now bound for regional runs. That's the highlight take-away from River's participation in the DI Amherst District Track & Field Championships which were held at Amherst Steele High School Wednesday-Friday. [
results]
And once again, it was the distance running contingent of the River squad at the vanguard of the Pirate attack. Seniors Chase DeClerck (1600-meter run) and Luke Kishna (3200-meter run) qualified on the boys' side. Seniors Sarah Mazzei (200-meter dash) and Keira Vesy (800) were joined by junior Sam Coleman (1600) in clocking qualifying times on the girls' side.
That group is now slated to return to Amherst for the May 26-28
DI Region 2 Championships.
DeClerck punched his ticket with a third-place finish in the boys 1600. The senior athlete finished just 1.04 seconds behind Avon's Jett Wieber, who won the event with a final time of 4:20.81. In the boys 3200, Kishna earned third-place with a time of 9:38.12. After qualifying for the championship final in the girls 200, Mazzei took the fourth-and-final qualifying slot with a time of 27.07 seconds. Coleman finished the girls 3200 in 5:06.58 to finish as that event's runner-up. Vesy ran the girls 800 in 2:19.91 to take third.
In the week's action on the boys' side, Rocky River earned 23 points to finish in a tie for 10th place. Aside from DeClerck's and Kishna's points, the Pirates earned scoring finishes in the 800 (Luke Dorenkott-sixth), pole vault (Alex Wojnowski-seventh), and three relays (4x100, 4x200, 4x800). Edward Opris and Nic DiSalvo were a part of two of those three.
On the girls' side, Rocky River earned 41 points to place ninth. In addition to its regional qualifying performances, the Double-R also tallied points in the 100-meter hurdles (Morgyn Cruz-fifth), 300 hurdles (Maeve Kelly-sixth), discus (Maeve Shoaf), and all four relays (4x100, 4x200, 4x400, 4x800). River's 4x4 relay narrowly missed qualifying for a region run; the Pirates were edged by Bay, finishing .49 seconds out of fifth place.
Six runners (Keira Arnold, Taylor Byall, Coleman, Mazzei, Caroline Sidoti, Vesy) were in on two of those scoring relays.
The Avon Eagles swept the boys' and girls' titles for the week. Avon edged St. Ignatius, 128 points to 120, on the boys' side. The Eagles won the girls' competition by one point, scoring 87 points to Westlake's 86.