Solid Showing for Roosevelt Girls Track at Stow Meet

Led by a winning 4x800-meter relay team, the Kent Roosevelt girls track and field team made a strong showing Saturday at the Reinhart Relays in Stow.

The Rough Riders’ only winning team, consisting of sophomore Sarah McClure, junior Maggie Connell, senior Hannah Sampson and freshman Mya Davis, comfortably led most of the way and crossed the finish line in 9:56.2 — three seconds ahead of second-place Green.

The Bulldogs challenged for Roosevelt’s top position in the race’s anchor leg, coming within a stride of Davis, but the freshman held on for the win.

“I was so proud of her,” Connell said. “All our hard work has finally paid off. We pushed it. Even though no one was in front of us, we still went.”

The relay victory and a handful of second-place finishes placed the girls team in sixth at the 12-team invitational with 49 points. Green topped the field with 103 points.

“Our distance and middle distance always is pretty strong when we come to meets like this,” girls coach Kate Kusnyer said. “(We’re) working on our sprinters. We ran our best 4x100 time today, (but we’re) still not as competitive as we’d like to be here. That’s sort of the last piece of the puzzle for our team.”

The Rough Rider girls stood out in the hurdle events, taking two second places. The shuttle hurdle team of junior Daniella Rice, sophomore Imani Sales, senior Kayse Schmucker and junior Erin Waples grabbed a runner-up finish behind Stow’s meet record-breaking run.

Waples also gave the Rough Riders their other second place, finishing just behind Stow’s Melanie Winters in the open 100 hurdles.

On the boys side of the competition, Roosevelt finished eighth out of 11 teams with 32.5 points. Hudson took home first with Stow coming in a close second.