The final scores of Thursday’s dual meet at Kirtland were less important to Cardinal track coach Greg Cicero than the overall performance of his squad in its final tune up before next week’s Chagrin Valley Conference Valley Division meet at Independence on Tuesday and Thursday.
Kirtland’s girls topped the Huskies, 77-54, and the Hornets came out on top of the boys competition, 86-49, but there were several strong individual performance.
“The girls competed well as we limited events to try and rest for the postseason,” Cicero said. “The boys lost focus early in the meet. Both senior boys, Craig Shanower and Nate Peters, did well and are primed for the postseason.”
Peters won both the discus and shot put.
He threw the disc 116 feet, 1 inch and the shot, 44-1.
“I am where I want to be for shot but not disc,” he said. “I wasn't happy with my performance. I could have done better. I need to work on getting faster through the circle (in the discus).”
Shanower won the hurdles with a time of 44.9 seconds and the 200-meter dash (24.4). He also ran legs in the 4×200 and 4×400-meter relays that finished first.
He teamed up with freshman Tyson Sinclair and sophomores Jacob Revak and Ben Lobdell to win the 4×2 in 1:40.7 and that same group won the 4×4 in 3:46.2.
Juniors Jordyn Schultz and Trisha Cesar both won two events for the Huskies.
Schultz dominated the discus and shot put with throws of 100-4 and 28-2, respectively.
“In discus, I had a couple rough throws so I had to really focus on clearing my head and calming down to get a good mark that I felt good about,” Schultz said. “It very easily becomes a head game if you let it, but overall I've been pretty super happy with my performances. For shot put, I've really had to break down the process and critique my glide because my marks have fallen greatly since the beginning of the season. Right now I'm really working on gaining my confidence and skills so that I can do as well as I know I can.”
The wins have restored her confidence heading into next week’s league meet.
“I was super excited after today, especially because I've been struggling a bit in shot put,” she said. “It was a great confidence booster. Now it's getting down to the nitty gritty and really working hard and pushing myself so that I'm really prepared for CVC and districts. I can't wait to see how it goes because I feel like I've progressed well this season, but there's definitely always room for improvement.”
Cesar cleared 7-feet to win the pole vault and took first in the long jump with a mark of 14-feet, ½ inch.
“I was a little sore going into today and of course nervous as usual when facing a CVC team, but coach Cicero and coach (Megan) Cameron were there to help me in both events, which really helped my nerves. The coaches and I have been focusing more on my field events this year and I think tonight was a good place to be in, especially with the CVC meet being so close. I only hope to get better from here.”
Sophomore Marina Cooper won the high jump (4-4), junior Erin Ross won the hurdles (51.3) and senior Noel Springer won the two-mile (14:28).
Senior Emily Kruse won the mile in 6:04.
“I was pretty happy with my performance in the mile,” Kruse said. “We had a tough week of practices this week, so my times today were not as fast as I would have hoped, but I know next week they will go down as we get ready for CVC. Since we ran the mile with the boys, I tried to stay with a couple of them for most of the race. So that helped push me a bit. I think running with them helped boost my confidence a bit more for next week for the conference meet.”
