ST. CLAIRSVILLE — After multiple qualifying meets throughout the week, Saturday’s OVAC Track and Field Championships, held at St. Clairsville High School’s Red Devil Stadium, pitted the conference’s top track athletes against one another– with an added challenge.

Rainfall fluctuated between steady sprinkle and downright downpour over the course of the five-hour meet, requiring the competitors present to overcome mother nature as well as their adversaries from across the Valley.

At the end of the road, some local teams continued their streak of OVAC dominance on the track, while others reached the precipice for the first time in a long time.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE

The hosting Red Devils took home the gold in class 4A in both mens and womens competition, sweeping the division for the fourth consecutive year.

The St. C. boys were co-champions with East Liverpool.

“Pretty proud of both teams– it’s a danger-week for us but they handled it pretty well, working multiple meets throughout the week and staying focused,” St. Clairsville head coach Darrin Wilson said. “The biggest thing we harp on is ‘do your job,’ whether that’s the relays, the field events– they really held to that this week.”

St. Clairsville’s girls finished with 86 team points, tied for second-highest overall and tops in 4A.

“The girls were favorites going into the week and they had an amazing week as well, did what they were supposed to,” Wilson said. “The coaching staff as a whole was very pleased with the way we handled this week.”

Juniors Ava Crum and Ava Borkoski tied for first place in 4A in the pole vault, each finishing at 8-6.

“On the girls side it starts with Ava Borkoski,” Wilson said. “She placed in all three field events– high jump, long jump and pole vault. Her and Ava Crum were co-champions in the pole vault so that was a big 18 points for the girls. Even before she got her day started at the field events she was part of our school record shuttle team.”

The Red Devils’ second-place shuttle hurdle team finished with a time of 1:09.63, second in 4A behind Weir. Members of the unit included Crum, Borkoski, Olivia Perzanowski and Elizabeth Morgan.

St. Clairsville’s 4×100 meter girls relay team were 4A champions, with Olivia McKeever, Emma Gasber, Lauren Powell and Meila King finishing in 52.98 seconds.

“The 4×100 and 4×200 ran really well, the 4×100 ended up being class champions,” Wilson said. “We were able to use our depth and spread some girls out over those two relays and keep some fresh bodies going. That helped, and the girls really bought in, didn’t pout about not being on the relays. Then one relay finished second, one finished first, so it was a good day there.”

St. C. junior Taylor Tucker placed third in both the 3200-meter run and 1600-meter run.

“Scored points in both, that’s not an easy double to do,” Wilson said.

On the boy’s side, the Red Devils tied atop 4A with East Liverpool, either team at 118 team points.

“The boys had an uphill battle this week with East Liverpool,” Wilson said. “They beat us at Buckeye 8’s, they have a really good group of boys and we were super impressed the way that ended up turning out. The fact that we got it to a tie, we were very happy.”

Dane Kinney was the 4A champion in the discus throw, with a toss 155-09.

“The field events is where we got it started and we built from there,” Wilson said.

Brady Blacker was the class champion in the 800-meter dash, second overall. He ran a 1:57.40.

“He’s a senior and he’s been waiting for that race for a long time,” Wilson said. “It was good to see him take the track and do his thing.”

Tyler Harris placed in both the mile and the 800, while Camden Judge placed in both the mile and the two-mile.

BARNESVILLE

The Shamrock boys climbed to the top of the podium on Saturday with 106 team points, a decisive showing that had them more than 30 points ahead of the second-place 3A team.

“Every year we prepare throughout the season for this meet,” Barnesville boys head coach Dylan Rogers said. “It’s been 25 years since the boys have won an OVAC championship in track and this is only the third in school history. We’d been runner-up for the last two or three years so we, especially these seniors, were ready for it. It didn’t take a lot from us for our senior leaders to step up and really take control of our team this week.”

“We had our prom Saturday night, first time in years that it landed on OVAC Saturday, and not a single one of them mentioned anything about leaving or having to get ready for Prom. They were locked-in, focused, they were determined as soon as they stopped off the bus and I knew some good things were going to happen.”

For the ‘Rocks, Eli Messenger was a pivotal player, claiming first place in 3A in the pole vault (10-06), second place in the 110 hurdles (17.18) and in the 300 hurdles (43.73) as well as being part of Barnesville’s 3A champion 4×400 relay team along with Evan Wells Brady Powell and Mason Starr. They ran a 3:39.30.

The Shamrocks shuttle hurdles team of Phoenix Graham, Joel Detling, Colt Detling and Cole Francis were also 3A champs, clocking a 1:04.27. Rogers noted that all four are sophomores.

Aden Zumock finished second in the 100-meter dash in 3A, and was the outright champ in the 200-meter dash with a 22.73. He was also on Barnesville’s 4×100 relay team which finished second in their class.

“The past couple years he’s been battling leg injuries,” Rogers said of Zumock. “He really hasn’t competed much in the last couple years, we’ve been doing our best to keep him safe and healthy and getting him prepared for our bigger meets. His training has been very limited, and he came out and he was second in the 100 and he was the overall 200 meter champion which was incredible.”

“He’s definitely one that, we knew what he was capable of doing, and we’d done our best to keep him as healthy as possible this year and to get him ready for OVACs.”

This was the Barnesville boys’ first OVAC championship since 2000 and third overall, winning in 1995 as well.

MAGNOLIA

The Blue Eagles earned a 1A/2A boys title for the first time since 2018 on Saturday, bringing an experienced crop of athletes to St. Clairsville and finishing with 96 team points.

“We are proud of the way the guys competed yesterday,” Magnolia head coach Kasey Sapp said. “Obviously the weather was not perfect for a track meet, but on those kind of days we just tell the boys ‘Hey, your job is to go out and compete, everybody else is dealing with the same conditions.’ I think we did a good job of that.”

Seven of the 10 competitors that Magnolia took to the championship meet were seniors.

Dubale Greathouse made it a perfect 4-for-4 on Saturday, winning 1A/2A gold in the high jump for the fourth year in a row. The senior cleared six feet. He also finished in third in the long jump.

Landen Davis qualified in four events, finishing first in the 800 meter with a new 1A/2A record of 2:03.49, and finishing second in the 1600-meter and 3200-meter.

Matthew Anderson and Darin Shimp finished second and third in both the 1A/2A discus throw and shot put, respectively.

“That was a big reason we were able to put up the points that we did,” Sapp said.

SHADYSIDE

The Tigers claimed a 1A/2A girls title with 86 team points, marking the first championship victory for the team in quite awhile.

Tigers head coach Ashley Visnic said she had heard from others that it had been more than 20 years since Shadyside’s girls had been atop their conference class.

“It was a super exciting experience for the entire team,” Visnic said. “It was the first time in many years that our girls team had won a 1A/2A title, so it was super exciting. The team has worked really hard during our practices so it was super rewarding for them to earn that title.”

“The kids handled the weather really well. It definitely added an additional challenge to the day but the kids handled themselves really well and pushed through all the wind and rain and everything that came along with that.”

Sophomore Chloe Meholovitch was a major player for the Tigers, placing second in the 1600, fourth in the 800 and first in the 3200 with a time of 12:13.11

“She was a huge part of our team’s success, she ran every distance event and had a big day,” Visnic said.

Also instrumental for Shadyside was freshman pole vaulter Aleena Barr who won gold in by clearing 8 feet.

Shadyside’s shuttle hurdles team and 4×200 relay team each came in second place.

ELSEWHERE across the local teams competing:

Steubenville’s Bri Hudson set a new 5A record in the discus throw with a 139-09.

Buckeye Local’s Jenna DelVecchio set a new 4A and stadium record in the 100-meter hurdles with a 14.60.

Steubenville Catholic Central’s Andrew Rohde set a new 1A/2A record in the 1600-meter with a 4:24.54.

Steubenville’s Ziare Scurry set a new OVAC Championships record in the 400-meter with a 49.29.