Recap: OHSAA Outdoor State Championships


Division 3


Gone Lactic (Sydnee Sinn)

The final high school meet for Sydnee Sinn proved to be a great one. Her versatility is impressive as she has varied from the 100m dash to the 1600m run this season. Ultimately, she decided to take the 400m and 800m races to the postseason. She also competed on the 4x400m relay for Wayne Trace.

In the 400m dash prelims, she dipped under the 56 second mark running 55.81. Many wondered how much faster she could go but the truth is, it was a lot. With a blazing 55.00 time in the finals, she now holds the fastest state and division time for DIII in history.

Fast forward to the 800m run where she ended up finishing second in a competitive field which included defending state champion Taylor Roth. 

To cap off the meet, she ran on the winning 4x400m relay team. The Wayne-Trace ladies defended their title from 2022 and also set new state and division records with a time of 3:54.85. 

Overall, this proved to be an incredible day for Sydnee Sinn. Although her high school running career is over, she will attend Michigan State next year and contribute a great amount to their track program.



Hurdling Up (Azure Travis)


Sometimes surprise double performances come out of the state meet, and this was definitely one of them. Coming into this meet, Travis was seeded 6th in the 100mH and 2nd in the 300mH. She had never won a state title. However, she quietly progressed and ended her season with two state victories.

In the 100mH prelims, she finished with the top spot running 14.89, edging out Lyv Linderman by thousandths of a second. This gave her momentum heading into the finals. She proved that she could go even faster as she ran to the title in 14.42. This set herself a new season PR as she ranked up as OH #9 for this season. 

The 300mH proved to be a fight from the start as she just snuck into the finals with a 47.17. She then blew this mark out of the water the next day running 43.82 and taking her second state title of the day. This was a personal best for her by over a full second. The performance she had landed her an OH #7 mark this season.

She will return next year for her final season and will be exciting to watch as she continues to progress.



Range (Jaylee Wingate)

As one who has made impressive improvements as her high school career has progressed, Wingate ended on a great note. She had a fully packed racing schedule on deck with the 800m, 1600m, 4x800m, and 4x400m. 

She accomplished her first outdoor state title in the 1600m run with a time of 4:56.05. Just an hour later, she ran 2:17.19 in the 800m run for a 3rd place finish. Both of these clocked in near her season PRs which were both set at the OHSAA Division 3 Region 9 - Norwayne meet as she ran 2:14.76 and 4:51.42 respectively. Next year, she will continue her running career at the University of Tennessee. 



Wire to Wire (Leah Smith, Izzy Zahn, Brianna Chenevey)

The trio of Leah Smith, Izzy Zahn, and Brianna Chenevey made their marks in the 100m and 200m dash. In both of these events, all three put themselves in title contention and made the finals. 

Leah Smith ultimately took the title in the 100m dash running 11.97. This was an improvement in time from her prelims performance where she clocked 12.11. With that being said, Brianna Chenevey was always on her heels for the title. Chenevey finished just 0.02 seconds back in the prelims which made this a great matchup in the finals. Ultimately, Smith gained on her margin from prelims as she won by 0.21 seconds in the finals. 

In the 200m dash, Izzy Zahn made her mark and separated herself from the field by nearly half a second running 24.39. In prelims, this margin was very similar. Brianna Chenevey once again ran herself to a runner up finish. At the end of the day, Chenevey had the best combined placement in the 100m and 200m dash. 

Leah Smith and Izzy Zahn will make a return next year while Brianna Chenevey will continue running at Ashland University.



One Man Army (Cole Miller)

Over in Division 3 on the boys side, there was someone that won 3 of the 3 events he competed in and tied for the runner up title with Columbus Grove High School for 30 points, and that was Cole Miller of Paint Valley. Coming into this championship, the senior was seeded first in the 200m Dash and the Long Jump and then seeded second in the 100m.

However, he made his statement though, and ended up pulling off the triple crown and scored 30, and also setting new personal bests in all three to close out his high school campaign in Ohio.

All of this comes after placing 5th in the 100m Dash last year at this same championship and taking 3rd in the long jump, so he has come quite a way to close out the last few months of his high school career.



Full Sends Only (Kaleb Nastari)

Many of us were waiting for this moment, the day that Kaleb would take the 800m state record, and that he did.

Immediately taking it out from the gun, Nastari put on a show for all of us with what would be considered the ideal way to run an 800m race, with +2 splits between the first (53.1x), and second lap (55.1x) to seal himself on top of the Ohio All-Times list for the event with a new record of 1:48.31, taking down the previous record set by Nick Plant of 1:48.52 set almost one year ago.

With this being his final performance on the Ohio stage, he sure made it one to remember.

If we were to go back and look at his progression from the beginning of high school until now, he has had quite a progression in this event, opening up with a 2:08, and now a few years later, ending on a 1:48.

To top it off as well, at this moment he is currently US #1 in the event.


Turning Over (Brylan Holland)

Bringing two home two state titles for his final race of his Ohio high school campaign, Holland showed two different ways to race to gold in both the 1600m and 3200m.

Starting with the 1600m, Holland went straight to the front and kept it that way for the entire 4 minutes and 13 seconds that he ran for, although there was still a decent chase pack behind him until the bell lap, where he opened up greatly to create separation between him and the rest of the field. However, he was not completely in the clear as Riley Nixon (Ottawa Hills 2024) began to valiantly move in the final 500 meters and nearly matched Brylan stride for stride, although it was not quite enough to snatch the win last second.

Moving onto the 3200m, not quite fresh due to the earlier race, it seems that Holland played it conservatively until the last 500 meters, as he was within the middle pack of the race until the last 800 where they eventually caught up with the leaders who had opened up a lead early in the race. Just like the 1600m, he was not completely in the clear, as Blake Rodgers of Belpre followed suit, although Brylan once again showed his turnover ability in the final 300m, eventually separating from Rodgers to claim his second title of the day.