SPARTA — Members of the Northmor High School track and field squads headed to Sparta on Tuesday and Friday to compete in the second Knox-Morrow Athletic Conference championships.
The Mount Gilead Indians entered as the returning champions on both the boys and girls side of things. A season ago, the Northmor boys finished as the runner-ups while the Lady Golden Knights took home third in the eight-team field.
After the first day of competition on Tuesday, the Lady Indians appeared to have a commanding lead over Highland; 68-34. On the boys side, Mount Gilead sat atop the leader board with 60 points but the East Knox Bulldogs found themselves not far behind with 49 points. Northmor’s boys team was in third place with 40 points while the Lady Knights were tied with Fredericktown for third with 31 points apiece, leaving the field anyone’s to win.
In day one, the preliminaries were held for the running events while the 4×800-meter relays and field events were scored.
Both the boys and the girls earned fourth-place finishes in the 4×800-relays while both squads also saw individual field event champions crowned.
Julianna DiTullio earned 10 points for the Lady Golden Knights with her victory in the long jump. DiTullio won the event with a bound of 15’2¾”. For the boys team, Tony Martinez won the pole vault while establishing a new meet record height of 12-feet.
Also earning points for the Lady Knights were: Reagan Swihart- high jump, tied-5th; Haley Dille- high jump, tied-5th; Rachael Ervin- pole vault, 7th; Sabrina Kelley- pole vault, 8th; Maddie Jordan- discus, 4th and Macy Miracle- discus, 7th.
Northmor’s boys also saw placements from: Aaron Berg- pole vault, 6th; Blake Miller- high jump, 2nd and discus, 7th; Adam Petulla- high jump, 5th; PJ Lower- long jump, 5th; Austin Hammond- shot put, 6th and Hunter Brookover- shot put, 7th.
Day two of the championships was delayed until Friday but when all the events were tallied, it would be both teams from Mount Gilead securing back-to-back KMAC championships.
Scoring on the boys side went: 1. Mount Gilead- 179; 2. NORTHMOR- 107; 3. East Knox- 96; 4. Highland- 92; 5. Fredericktown- 85; 6. Centerburg- 53; 7. Danville- 12 and 8. Cardington- 11.
Gavvin Keen would earn the final event championship for the Knights’ boys squad, winning the 800-meter run with a time of 2:03.75. In the relay events, Northmor was disqualified in the 4×100-meter relay but went on to pick up the runner-up spot in the 4×400-meter relay and ran to a third-place finish in the 4×200-meter relay.
Other placements on day two for the boys were: Anthony Petulla- 110-meter hurdles, 4th and 300-meter hurdles, 5th; Gavin Miller- 110-hurdles, 5th; Garrett Barnhart- 100-meter dash, 6th; Kooper Keen- 1600-meter run, 8th; Drew Zoll- 400-meter dash, 3rd and 200-meter dash, 3rd; Alec Moore- 400, 4th; Mostyn Evans- 800, 6th; Lower- 200, 7th and G. Keen- 3200, 5th.
For the Lady Golden Knights, they too would earn more event win on Friday, claiming the title in the 4×200-relay. The Northmor group of Sabrina Kelley, Bailey Wiseman, Natalie Bloom and Frankie Cutrupi paced the field with a championship time of 1:58.13. Overall, the Lady Knights would claim fourth in the eight-team field with 89 total points.
Rounding out the scoring on the girls side of the KMAC were: 1. Mount Gilead- 157; 2. Centerburg- 107; 3. Fredericktown- 90; 5. Highland- 87; 6. East Knox- 62; 7. Danville- 45 and 8. Cardington- 1.
Also earning points for Northmor in day two were: Lexi Wenger- 100-meter hurdles, 5th and 300-hurdles, 7th; Ervin- 100-hurdles, 7th and 300-hurdles, 3rd; Bloom- 100, 8th; DiTullio- 1600, 4th and 800, 4th; Julia Kanagy- 1600, 7th; Kelley- 400, 6th; Cutrupi- 200, 6th; Olivia Goodson- 3200, 5th; Maddison Yaussy- 3200, 7th; 4×100-relay, 5th and 4×400-relay, 3rd.
