Shelby girls and Ontario boys win rainy MOAC competition

MARION — One hated it, the other adopted it.

Thursday’s soggy conditions aside, Shelby’s Princess Timko and Ontario’s Dean Morrison were kindred spirits when it came to beating everyone else across the finish line and helping their schools win team championships.

“It was horrible getting off the bus, it was nice and hot,” Timko said after winning the 100 and 200 meters to help the Shelby girls win their fourth straight Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference track and field crown to Marion Harding.

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“I don’t like running in the rain, but I managed it. I had to surpass myself. »

Not Morrison. If only he could have given the showers that last all day a big hug.

“Honestly, I’ve learned to love the weather,” he said after winning the 1600 and 3200, the latter by 0.06 over Marion Harding’s Carter Ferguson. “It won’t always be pleasant, especially during training. So I just had to trick myself into liking it. I love rain. I love bad weather.

Morrison won the 1,600 in 4:33.58 and the 3,200 in 10:00.2. He also ran a leg of the winning 4 x 800 relay in Tuesday’s first session of the two-day competition.

Add to that a sweep of all three sprint relays – 4 x 100, 4 x 200 and 4 x 400 – and Ontario managed to hold off Galion 147-128 for the school’s first track championship, boys or girls , since joining the league in 2018.

“I didn’t intend to make up time today,” Morrison said. “I was going to do an internship. I was just trying to win.

Last year, Timko was unable to participate in the MOAC because she missed half the season with a hamstring problem. This year, she’s making up for lost time and filling the void left by nationally ranked sprinter Ava Bowman, who suffered a season-ending injury.

“I really knew I had to step it up,” Timko said. “With Ava, we scored a lot of points and I had to make sure I kept scoring points.”

Timko had a lot of help. She is part of a strong stable of sprinters as Shelby won the 4×1 and 4×2. The Whippets also had a double in the 800 thanks to Channon Cundiff (2:33.4) and Emma Montgomery (2:36.39) and got a first Tuesday from long jumper Madison Henkel when all events on the field were organized.

Henkel’s winning jump of 17-9.5 was just a quarter-inch away from the jump that earned him a fifth-place medal at last year’s state meet.

Former Ontario state champion and new head coach Rachel Miller was trying to lead her alma mater to the same extent Shelby did last year. But even though Ontario’s Sasha Bulakovsky won the 400m (1:03.26) and competed in first place in the 4×4 (4:21.17), Shelby managed to fend off the Warriors’ title bid and winning by a margin of 135-118.

The Galion boys had a big day on the oval. Sophomore Jacob Chambers swept the 100 and 200 in 10.85 and 23.27. Zachery Sallee won the 400 in 53.63 and also finished second in the 100 and third in the 200. And Linkon Tyrrell proved once again why he is one of the region’s best hurdlers, winning repeat titles in the 110m (14.95) and 300m. (42.52).

It was the fourth time Tyrrell had managed 15 seconds in the summits. He had his PR of 14.8 the week before at the Galion Invite.

When asked if he had ever competed in elements worse than Thursday, Tyrrell said, “My sophomore year, at (Sandusky) Perkins, down at the lake, it was like that with the rain, only about 30 degrees cooler. It wasn’t fun.

Tyrrell commits to Kent State next week, where he will be a decathlete. Given how he overcame some wet areas of the track on Thursday, there may also be steeplechase in his future.

“We have a youth track and field program at Galion and (Linkon) always did that and he loved it,” said his father Matt Tyrrell, the Tigers’ sprint coach and also Galion’s athletic director. “He’s always loved the hurdles and all of a sudden he’s 6-3 and these races suit him really well.

“He started training in Columbus on Sundays with the Ohio Speed Academy with some really good coaches and he really likes it.”

Linkon comes from a family of wrestlers. His father and uncle, Brent, wrestled for Galion and Matt was All-America at the University of Findlay. Brent is the head coach at Galion and Matt, the former head coach, is an assistant.

“It just didn’t stick with me,” Linkon said of the struggle. “I did it when I was younger, until freshman year, and then I switched to indoor track, which really changed things for me. »

Tyrrell was a state qualifier in the highs last year and this season he became the only new member of the 4×1 team to finish seventh at state. He leads the first stage ahead of Chambers, Sallee and Gabe Ivy.

“We’ve just revitalized the indoor track season the last two years (under new head coach Ryan Scribner),” Matt Tyrrell said. “It hadn’t been very good since Todd Roston was coach a few years ago.”