Hawken’s Ella Gilson and Perry’s Leah King closed out the spring atop the podium on Saturday at the 2019 OHSAA State Track & Field Championships.
King repeated as the Division II state champion in the 300-meter hurdles and Gilson won the Division II state title in the 1600-meter run.
“It feels amazing,” Gilson said. “I’m so happy with the outcome.”
The top of the podium is a familiar position for Gilson, who ended her sophomore year with three state titles in three different sports.
In the fall, she won the Division II state cross country championship and was part of Hawken’s 400 freestyle relay team that won a Division II state title during the state swimming and diving championships.
She also earned All-Ohio honors in two other swim events and two more track races as she finished eighth in the 800 and helped Hawken’s 4×400-meter relay team to a third-place finish.
“I wish I would have placed higher in the 800 but I wasn’t quite rested from the mile,” she said. “I’m very satisfied with the other two races. (In the 4×400), I got a very good split time and I felt strong and my teammates got me in a great position and helped me through the race.”
Gilson finished second in the 1600 last spring and did all she could to take home the state championship this year. She finished the race in 4:53.34.
“(I had to) run my own race while always keeping my eye on my competitors,” she said.
Gilson teamed up with Zaria Johnson, McKenzie McNitt and Laura Bucchieri in the 4×400 relay.
King closed out her remarkable career with her second straight state title in the 300-meter hurdles and a runner-up finish in the 100-meter hurdles.
She won the 300 with a time of 43.06 seconds. She missed out on a third straight title in the 100-meter hurdles by just .06 seconds.
In her four years at Perry, King won four state titles and earned All-Ohio honors eight times in three different events.
Chagrin Falls’ 4×800-meter relay team of Hannah Clark, Claire Coffey, Rose Hoelzel and Catherine Coffey won the state title on Friday with a time of 9:18.20.
Catherine Coffey also earned a runner-up finish in the 800 with a time of 2:13.66.
Beachwood’s Ashley Perryman earned All-Ohio honors in three different events with a runner-up finish in the long jump (17-9). She finished fifth in the 100-meter dash (12.38) and led the 4×100-meter relay team to a fifth-place finish in 49.29.
Ja’khai James, Sydney Sarver and Ashaunti Griffin also competed in that event.
Orange’s 4×200-meter relay team of Armon Frey, Gregory Beard, Diante White and Eddie Harrell placed second with a time of 1:29.
Harrell also placed fifth in the 800 (1:55.48) and ran a leg in the 4×400-meter relay. That squad of Harrell, Frey, Brian Pernell and Michael McNeil placed eighth (3:25.33).
Other athletes from the Chagrin Valley Conference to earn All-Ohio honors in Division II included Beachwood’s Maddie Alexander, who was sixth in the high jump (5-3), Langston Gaines-Smith, who finished eighth in the 400 (49.68) and Elizabeth Metz, an eighth-place finisher in the shot put (39-1 ¼); Chagrin Falls’ Rose Hoelzel, who placed eighth in the 1600 (5:06.07); Orange’s Jesseca Hudson-Turpin, who finished sixth in the 100 (15.33); and Perry’s Anna Sorine, who placed fifth in the 800 (2:16.80).
The CVC had four teams finish among the top 12 in the Division II girls’ competition.
Perry was seventh with 22 points while Beachwood was ninth (20), Chagrin Falls was 10th (19) and Hawken finished 12th with 17.
Cuyahoga Heights’ Kyel Wolff and Independence’s Robert Artrip earned all-state honors in Division III.
Wolff placed fourth in the pole vault (14-4) while Artrip was seventh (14-0).
