Hot Summer Bash: Watch Live, Coaches Previews

Hot Summer Bash - Hilliard Davidson
Mark Dwyer


(Nick Puhl and the Wildcats took 1st place in the team standings during their opener at Pickerington North)  

Boys Team Previews


Coach Pat Schlecht / Hilliard Davidson

Hilliard Davidson is returning six runners from last year squad and their improvement has been remarkable. Sophomore, Connor Ackley-10 should be among the top runners in the state. His training volume has made him significantly stronger than last year. Seniors, Nate Gilbert-12, RJ Sagrilla-12 and Junior Nick Puhl-11, have been following close behind Connor and hope to join the front of the race. Senior, Noah Pease-12, is a solid fifth man while we wait the return out outstanding Junior Alex Hudson-11, who has been cleared to run from an injury. The seventh spot is up for grabs. Freshman, Brody Boyd-9 and Senior Jay Chung-12 are very close to our fifth man with Senior, Adam Alsko-12 and Junior, Zach Whitney-11 are closing the gap on our seventh spot.

Davidson has high expectations and hopes to content for the state championship.  We are experienced, hungry and ready to race.


Coach Bryn Rohlck / Upper Arlington

Upper Arlington's men's team is ready to go!!! Lead runner Charlie Nowinski has been chasing redemption all summer after the spring track season was cancelled. Teammates: Payton Domagalski, Alex Nicol, Nathan Mark, Ryan Card and Michael Wulf are not far behind and have big goals for the post-season after missing the state meet mark last year. Ty Fredrick, Charlie Wagner and Thomas McMahon have also worked hard all summer to earn their spot on varsity as the team aims for state qualification and they will not go down without a fight. The team has a whole new attitude this year. We have gone from "we think we can do it," to "we are going to do it."


Coach Todd Black / St. Johns Jesuit 

The Titans are coming off a Conference Championship team that qualified for the regional meet, finishing 5th. They will be led by Juniors  Anthony Patten and Jakob Moon and two Seniors Sam Ingham and Wil Halker.

The titans look to repeat at TRAC champs and qualify for the state meet this year.


Coach Adam Walters / Olentangy Orange

The Olentangy Orange boys team opened up the season winning the New Albany invitational on August 24th. They are excited to race the competitive field at the Hot Summer Bash. The Pioneers are led by senior Jake Ethridge, junior Bryan King and freshman Saketh Rudraraju.The team returns half of their varsity line up from last season which placed 3rd at regionals and 18th at the state meet.


Coach Ryan Beck / Gahanna Lincoln

Gahanna Lincoln Boys: Things are going well, and the summer has been good.  We lost our top 3 scorers but we return 4 from our varsity team last year that won the regional championship and finished fourth overall in the state.  Based on our early workouts we are deeper than last year through 5, 7 and 10, but we may not have the same power up front. Our biggest challenge will be to push our top guys to run with the frontrunners from the area powers.

Donovan Hight so far looks to be our top runner this year, with Connor Hughes closer behind. Both  Donovan Hight and Connor Hughes are seniors.  

We appear to have a strong contingent of freshmen and sophomores. AJ Eggleston, a sophmore and our top returner by time, is coming off a foot injury and has just begun training again. Owen Huzicka, Charlie Slates and Abi Sileshi, all sophomores, as well as Noah Long, a freshman look to fill out the remainder of our top 7.

Also contending for varsity spots are Seniors Ryan Amer, Isaiah Rowe, Ethan Huang, Ben Workman, sophomores Will Michael and Jordan Anderson, as well as Freshman K'Tyo Hendershott.

As far as our first meet goes, we hope to match up well with our competitors 1-5 as we are young and inexperienced -- running varsity races will be a whole new ballgame for many of our guys, even if we believe they have the mindset to do it.  As far as an overarching goal, we hope to run ourselves back into the conversation as one of the top teams in our region, qualify to the state and perform strongly once we get there.


Coach David Wadenstierna / Dublin Jerome

Jerome enters the Hot Summer Bash off of a strong summer training session led by senior captains Andrew Bartsch, Gunnar Grass, Reid Weigle, and Jordan Gross. The Celts have their sights set on a state meet qualification this season. Young, emerging contributors Josh Razor, Sam Ricchiuti, Pranav Khadkikar, David Hartman, Sam Boggess, Nolan Boyea, and Carson Smith vie to join with the seniors to help the Celts achieve their goal this season!

Coach Matt Fox / Hilliard Darby

Sean Carney will lead our team this year. He has put in an amazing summer of work coming off his victory at the OATCCC indoor state meet 3200 this last March. He and our other seniors have been diligent in providing a model of work and consistency for the team. Despite the difficult circumstances, the team has put in a great base this summer. I look forward to watching them progress into the later stages of training as their efforts in putting in quality summer base miles will pay off as we get into the championship season in October. The rest of our varsity squad will very much run as a pack with several guys all consistently working together these last couple months. Two other seniors, Caleb Nelles and Braden Bower will be mainstays in our top 7. Sophomore Collins Applegate and Juniors Ryan Bugg and Jake Long have really improved since last season and coiuld have big years. Juniors Ben Fleck and Aidan Koppenhofer will also play a major role this season!