Warrior boys back on track

KARL PEARSON
Star Beacon

May 11, 2008 01:18 am

— ANDOVER TOWNSHIP — For a couple teams that were looking for a shot of confidence entering Saturday’s All-Ashtabula County Meet, the Edgewood and Pymatuning Valley boys teams got just what the doctor ordered.
Edgewood came into the meet at Pymatuning Valley fueled by its disappointment at not repeating as Northeastern Conference champion in Wednesday’s meet, yet comforted by the knowledge it was returning to an all-weather surface where it has enjoyed great success for nearly a decade.
It paid off as the Warriors won eight of 17 events, including two relays, and got a new meet record in the long jump from Termaine McCabe and victories from Robert Van Akin in the 110-meter high hurdles and 300-meter intermediate hurdles on the way to 1721⁄2 points, its second straight meet title and its sixth in the past seven years.
The host Lakers were looking for some positive reinforcement heading into the Northeastern Athletic Conference Meet they will host Wednesday. They were also eager to find out how larger teams might push them as they look forward to the Division III district meet May 21 and 23 at New Middletown Springfield. They got really encouraging answers in winning seven events, including meet records in the 1600- and 3200-meter runs from senior Landon Hamilton and a sweep of the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes by senior Brandon Barrett. That added up to 113 points for second place.
Lakeside finished third with 88 points and a win in the 800-meter relay. Jefferson was fourth with 83 points and got a victory from Jeremy Onion in the shot put. Geneva had 46 points, Conneaut 17 and Grand Valley 41⁄2 to round out the scoring.
Edgewood coach Jim Sanchez was definitely encouraged by his team’s efforts Saturday.
“We definitely needed a booster shot of confidence,” he said. “Losing to Harvey on Wednesday helped us in a lot of ways because we realized we’d done well against a super team. You could see the confidence come back today. You could see that championship look come back into their eyes today.
“It’s nice to defend our title here. This place has been good to us and this meet means a lot to us. I think we’re feeling good about ourselves going into the district here (May 22 and 24) and trying to extend our championship string to seven. Termaine came through with the record on his last attempt in the long jump, Robert came through for us in both hurdles and our distance team gave us another solid performance.”
In addition to the performances of McCabe and Van Akin, Jordyn Dickey won the pole vault and Thomas Butryn took the 800-meter run. The other wins came from the 3200-meter relay of Cody Chabola, Dan Hare, Tyler Wright and Butryn and the 400-meter relay of Giancarlo Fasano, McCabe, Matt Anderson and Kyle Wright.
McCabe broke the long jump record that was first set in 1992 by Conneaut’s Dan Purdue and was matched in 1997 by Jefferson’s Matt Talcott at 20-41⁄2. He extended it to 20-101⁄2 after Jefferson’s Jonathan Landis had taken the lead at 20-73⁄4 on his final jump.
“It feels good to get that win,” McCabe said. “Landis really made me nervous, but I knew I still had one jump left and that helped a lot. Getting the record feels good. Now I want to get in the 21s.”
PV coach Kevin Brown was feeling better about his team’s showing than the Lakers were. He also got wins from Jake Lautanen in the high jump and Josh Pilson in the discus.
“I know some people look at this as spoiled milk. The boys wanted to win this meet real bad,” he said. “It’s just that Edgewood’s No. 2s were better than ours, but I was very pleased with our No. 1s.
“Landon certainly did a great job and Brandon has been a workhorse for us all season. We also got a great job from Jake and Josh in their events. I’m really pleased. I think this is going to really help us for our conference meet Wednesday. I feel good about our team’s chances at the district meet, too.”
Hamilton wore a huge grin after his big day. His 1600-meter time of 4:26.41 knocked nearly three-10ths of a second off the old record of 4:26.7 set by Edgewood’s Andy Greicius in 1996. His 3200-meter clocking trimmed the record to 9:50.8 from the 9:54.1 set by Lakeside’s Mike Sawicki in 2002.
“It wasn’t a bad day at all,” he said. “I’m pretty excited about my times. I just wanted to run fast times today, and this is the fastest I’ve ever doubled up. I was looking for 4:27 in the mile and just to get under 10 in the two today, so I’m real happy.
“This is a good confidence builder for me and the team. It’s great for our team to get ready for district.”
Barrett wasn’t quite as pleased as his teammate.
“I could have done better, but I’m still happy,” he said. “I was hoping to get 10.8 in the 100, in the 22s in the 200 and in the low 50s in the 400. This just gives me something to shoot for.”
Derrell McCaleb, Gerald Murphy, Mike Turner and Kevin McCaleb Jr. comprised Lakeside’s 800-meter relay.

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