Meet of Champions / State Qualifier

Note: Ron Kalasinskis has a pic for every paragraph in this article (not in order) at www.rochesterforkids.com.  (if you know how to use <ctrl-PrntScrn>, paste in to paint, select(crop) and save, you can make your own copy).

Rubin Owens of LeRoy followed up his nation-leading 6-10 high jump from last week with a 6-7 win over Desmond Mobley of Greece Olympia who also cleared 6-7 and lost on misses.

Mobley followed up by winning the long jump with a 23-10.5, just 2 ½ inches off his 24-1 season best which is state leading and 3^rd in the nation.

Brian Smith of Greece Athena won the 55m and 300m which he has done in nearly every meet for the past 2 winter seasons.  (Carnell Noble of Greece Olympia got him in the 55m once this year).  Smith’s 6.36 from a couple weeks ago is still top10 in the nation.

Kaishaun Cathey of Edison Tech jumped 47-8.5 to lead the state and lead a group of 4 Section V triple jumpers that are unbelievable.  Somehow Section V tends to have good triple jumpers and this year is outrageous.  The state rankings are Cathey is at 1, Chauncey Scissum of Rush-Henrietta at 3, Craig Hardgers of Greece Olympia at 6, and Rubin Owens of LeRoy at 9. That’s right 4 of the top 10 are from Section V.  But… we can only send 3 and tonight Hardgers drew the short stick and the 45-9.5 he jumped which would qualify in any other section didn’t make top 3 in Section V.  So its Cathey, Scissum and Owens.

Amir Rogers of Northeast Prep finished an undefeated season in the hurdles with a season best 7.52 which is the second fastest in the state.

Karmen Auble of Warsaw also finished an undefeated season hitting 12’ in the pole vault for the 6^th week in a row and holds her position of 2^nd in the state.

Katie Lembo of Penfield blew away the 3000m field by a mind-blowing 48 seconds!  She’s ranked 3^rd in the state at about 9:50, but when she has some competition at states we might see something even faster.  After the 3000m Lembo went on to the 1500m where…

Eileen O’Hara of Webster Thomas got her head-to-head shot at Lembo and won (albeit, Lembo had run a 3000 already).  It was O’Hara 4:37.63, Lembo 4:46.99.

Ryan Cribbin of Irondequoit threw the shot 55-5.75 for the win and 4^th place on the state leaderboard.

Mackenzie Sturtz of Marion held off Amanda Burkey of Fairport in the high jump by misses, but Burkey raised her season best to 5-6 and she and Sturtz are in a 4 way tie for 4^th best in the state.

Sam Harding of Canandaigua won the pole vault with 14-6 which is tied for 5^th in the state, but in a year with more depth than ever before, it’s a 7-way tie for 5^th.  An unprecedented 11 guys have cleared 14-6 or better this year, and they’re all within 13” of the state leader, it should be quite a state meet

Christine Lyttle of Canandaigua blew away the hurdle field as usual and nearly matched her spectacular early season time of 8.50 which has her ranked 7^th in the state.

Victoire Kothor of Greece Odyssey won the shot put with a 38-11 and somehow last week I missed reporting her huge 40-9.5 throw which puts her at 7^th in the state.

Maddie Kopp of Spencerport had the double win in the 300m where she’s ranked 8^th in the state and the 55m.

Mickey Burke of Rush-Henrietta won the 3200m by almost 20 seconds over second place with a 9:24.72 which is 11^th in the state.

Alex Kober of Webster Schroeder has had an incredible season, making new Section V season bests (and personal PR’s) in the triple jump just about every week.  This week Davida Hawkes of Pittsford Sutherland hit the first 36 footer of the season, but Kober answered with a 36-5 for the win.

Josh Hanna of Aquinas won the race of the night winning a 600m where the top 4 guys all had season bests and ran in a tight pack the whole way.  In the end it was Hanna 1:22.95, Colby Bleier McQuaid 1:23.33, Ben Drexler Aquinas 1:23.59, Austin Peters Pittsford Sutherland 1:24.7. 

All 3 of the boys relay races produced season bests: 4x200 Greece Olympia 1:31.71, 4x400 Aquinas 3:28.64, 4x800m McQuaid 8:08.40.

Pittsford Sutherland’s girls 4x200m lived up to their early season promise with the win, Hilton won the 4x400m 4:08.71 and who else but Rush-Henrietta for the 4x800m with a 9:32.09.