Jun 14, 2009

The Ohio girls team at the Midwest Meet of Champions made a statement by scoring 223 points in the all-star type meet. Ohio's point total was 50 points ahead of runner up, Michigan, who scored 173 points. Indiana rounded out the competition with 73 points on the girls side.

On the boys side, Michigan was able to beat Ohio with a late surge of points that started with 800m race. Michigan scored 171.5 points to Ohio's 168. Indiana finished third with 133.5 points.

In the field events, Ohio placed three people in the top six in both the Pole Vault and the High Jump. In the Pole Vault Ohio went one two with Katie Nageotte clearing 12-3 and Kayla Caldwell clearing 11-9. Ohio also went 1-2 in the Discus where Erin Pendleton took the gold with a toss of 160-5 and Melissa Dodaro finished second with a heave of 143-6.

The bulk of Team Ohio's girls points came from the individual running events in which the Ohio Girls placed three in the top six spots in all individual running events except for the 800m. Ohio also won the 4x400m Relay and the 4x100m Relay on the girls side and finished second to Team Michigan in the 4x800m Relay and the 4x200m Relay.

Ohio's Mahagony Jones won the 100m (12.05), the 400m (55.04) and anchored the 4x400m Rleay team on her way to claiming the coveted Star of Stars award which is given to the athlete with the most impressive performances from the meet. In the 100m Lauren Macer finished second in a time of 12.40 seconds.

The Only other individual winner on the girls side in running events was Erika Schmidt who won the 200m in a time of 24.62 seconds.

On the boys side, Ohio placed three competitors in the top six in the shot put, pole vault and the long jump. In the long jump Ohio was able to go 1-2 with Korbin Smith soaring 23-2.5 and Josh Woods jumping 22-10.

In the relays the Ohio Boys team won three of the four relays, only dropping the 4x200 Team Michigan. The Ohio 4x800m Relay team of Zach Goulet, Zach Lathrop, Willie Brown and Daryl Murphy who ran an impressive 7:33.27, less than half of a second off of the meet record.

Individually the Ohio Boys only placed all three of their athletes in the top six in the 3200m Run, but Team Ohio was able to win four individual events, and was able to finish 1-2 in two of the four events.

Ohio's Boys team captain, Ben Moody, won the 110 Hurdles in a time of 13.91, with fellow Ohio Dailyn Moore taking second place in a time of 14.08. In the 1600m Josh Tormasi ran the fastest time by an Ohioan this year by finishing in 4:09.54.

Ohio also went 1-2 in the 400m dash. Rob Baisden took the gold in a time of 47.97, while Cody Miller finished second in a time of 48.08 seconds.

The final Ohio winner was Jordan Rispress who amazed the crowd with the way he finished the final 100m of the 300m Hurdles. Rispress went from about fourth and down by half the distance of a hurdle when coming of the curve to to winning by almost half a second over Indiana's Logan Griffith.