Category Archives: Track and Field

The Granville Blue Aces were invited to the Fulton Relays held at Lancaster High School in Lancaster, Ohio. Jonny was scheduled to participate in the 4×1600 Meter Relay and was to run the 800 Meter leg in the Distance Medley Relay.

The first event he ran was the 4×1600 Meter Relay.  Jonny ran the final leg of the race with a Personal Best split time of 4:37 which eclipses his previous best time by 10 seconds.  The team finished in 18:54.76 which was good enough for 4th place out of the 13 teams competing.

The second event Jonny ran in was the Distance Medley Relay.  He ran the 1st leg which is 800 meters.  The other legs are 400 Meters, 1200 Meters and 1600 Meters long.  Again Jonny got a Personal Best of 2:02 for his 800 Meters.  The team completed the 2.5 mile race in 10:57.65 which was good enough for 3rd place overall out of 14 teams.

Jonny participated at Zanesville High School today in a tri meet that included Zanesville and Licking Heights as well as Granville.  He ran in the 4×200 Meter Relay and the 4×400 Meter Relay.  The conditions were very windy and since it was not an invitational, they tried the kids in races they would not normally race, which is why Jonny ran in the 4×200.

We didn’t get splits in the 4×200 Meter Relay, but the team overall ran 1:46.78 which was good enough for 3rd out of the 5 teams that raced.  The Granville A team won the race with a time of 1:37.90 and they were edged out by the team from Licking Heights for second who finished in 1:45.55.

Jonny was the final leg in the 4×400 Meter Relay, unfortunately in one of the handoffs the baton was dropped and the team was disqualified.  Even with the dropped baton the team finished in 3:47.7, which would have put them in 3rd place.  Jonny ran his 400 meters in 56.1.

Jonny participated in the Hank Smith Invitational at Heath High School today. He was only scheduled in one race, the 4×800 Meter Relay.  The temps were close to 80 and it was very warm and humid.  Jonny ended up getting a call from our neighbor last night around 10:30 requesting he come over and watch our neighbors 6 year old daughter.  Our neighbor’s visiting mother fell and hit her head and he needed to take her to the hospital, but needed someone to look after their youngest since her Mom and older sister were spending the night in Pittsburgh at the museum of science and industry.  He didn’t get home until after 1:00 am and was a little tired the next morning when he had to be to the school to take the bus to the meet with the team.

He ran the final leg of the relay and I think the team was in 8th place when he got the baton.  He made up a lot of time and ended catching the 7th and 6th place runners who were ahead of him by almost 100 meters.  The team ended up in 6th place with a time of 8:36.78.  Jonny’s leg was 2:05.4.  Here is the video that I took.

Today was one of the longer travel days for the team to make it to an event that displays a number of the state’s top ranked athletes on display.  The weather was almost perfect for the athletes.  The temps were in the upper 50’s and mostly sunny.

Jonny was scheduled for the 800 meter run and the 4×110 meter shuttle hurdle relay.  His first race was the 800 meter run.  This race featured a couple of the best 800 meter racers in the state and the pace was very fast and broke a track record.  Jonny get a personal best of 2:03.35 and ended up 10th overall out of the field of 28.    Here is the video I took from the 800 meter run.

Jonny then raced in the 4×110 hurdles.  Unfortunately the 4×110 hurdles follows the 200 meter dash which followed the 800 meter run that Jonny just participated in.  His legs were still tired from the 800 meter run and he was the first leg of the 4×110 shuttle hurdles.  His team was put in the fast heat and they ended up 5th overall with a time of 73.11.  Jonny finished his leg in 18.4.  The 110 Meter Shuttle Run video is below.

The Blue Aces participated in the Licking Valley Dick Houston Relays at the Licking Valley High School.  Jonny was scheduled to run in the Shuttle Hurdle Relay and the Distance Medley Relay, which consists of an 800, 400, 1200 and 1600 meter legs.  Jonny was to run the 1200 meter leg.

The Shuttle Hurdle Relay was delayed an hour due to the thunderstorms that were rolling through.  Each leg is 110 meters long and the team finished in 4h place with a time of 1:06.81.

The Distance Medley Relay was several hours late and ended up being the last event of the evening.  The Distance Medley Relay was the 8th event and they were scheduled for 18 running events for the evening.  The boys team ended up in 2nd place with an overall time of 11:02.29 for the 2.5 mile race.

The first track meet of the season was held at Upper Arlington High School just a few miles west of the OSU Campus.  The meet consisted of Upper Arlington and Hilliard Darby, both division I schools.  Jonny ran in the 300 Meter hurdles and the 4×400 relay.  It was a lot colder expected with the temps 10 degrees lower than forcasted.  The actual temp was 39 with the wind chill bringing it down to 33 degrees.

The first event for him was the 300 hurdles.  According to the coach they get very little practice running hurdles.  According to the coach Jonny only ran the first part of the 300 meter hurdles once over 3 hurdles in all the practices, since they asked him to try hurdles just before the first meet.  There were two heats and it was apparent that Jonny should have been put in the faster heat.  Even though he lost his balance after on hurdle and stumbled and had to stutter step just before another hurdle due to a cell phone in his lane that distracted him, he still had a very respectable time of 47 seconds.  With competition he would have been faster.

The second event was the 4×400 relay.  Jonny ran the 4th and final leg of the relay.  Jonny got the baton in 3rd place and about 20 meters behind the first place competitor.  He was slowing catching up until about 250 meters left in the race.  Jonny started his sprint to the finish about that point and really started to catch the other two.  He passed both other racers with just over 100 meters left in the race and won the race by 10 meters while finishing his leg in 53.3 seconds.  The team finished the mile long run in 3:43.5.

Jonny made it to one of the 4 Regional Meets in Ohio.  Today is the finals for the 4×800 meter relay and the preliminaries for the 4×400 meter relay with the finals to be held on Friday May 30th.

Jonny was the lead off leg on the 4×800 meter relay.  He ran his leg in 2:03.7 which was a new personal best for him.  The team completed the relay in 8:11.37 and finshed 9th.   They were eliminated from moving on to the state finals in the 4×800.

Jonny was the 3rd leg in the 4×400 preliminaries.  Jonny ran his leg in 53 second and the team ran finished in 3:27.01, which again was not fast enough to get them to the regional finals held on Saturday.  They ran it the previous week in 3:22.06, but this week even if they were able to replicate that, they would have ended up in 7th and been eliminated anyway.

Jonny’s season is over, but he had a wonderful year of running.  We are looking forward to see him run again next year.

Jonny ran in one of the 16 District Championships held in Ohio.  Last Thursday they advanced in the 4×800 to the one of the four Regional Championships in the state.  They were the District Champions in the 4×400 race today with a time of 3:22.06.  Jonny ran a personal best split time of 52.00.  This put the 4×400 team in the Regional finals as well.  The boys and girls teams took 2nd overall at the District Championships.

Next week the Regional Championships will be held at Pickerington High School North.  They will run the championship 4×800 race on Wednesday and the 4×400 preliminary race on Wednesday as well.  If they are the top 4 in the 4×800, they move on to the State Championships the following week.  If they are one of the top 8 in the 4×400 preliminaries, they will advance to the Regional Championship Finals on Friday the 30th of May.  Then they will need to be a top 4 finisher to move on the State Championships.

Boys 2nd place overall finish

Girls and Boys District 2nd Place Finish

Boys 4×400 District Champions

Boys and Girls District 2nd Place

Jonny participated in Ohio Central District Championships for Division 1 – District 3.  He ran in the 4×800 meter relay and the 4×400 relay.  Most of the events today were preliminaries for Saturday’s finals.  The one of the exceptions was the 4×800 relay.

Jonny ran the third leg in the 4×800 relay with his split being 2:05.  The team ended up with a time of 8:14.51 and placed 4th, which qualified them for the Regional Finals next week.

He also ran the 4×400 which was a preliminary race.  They only needed to one of the top 8 teams to make it to the finals on Saturday.  Jonny ran his leg of the 4×400 in 53 seconds which was a new Personal Best for him.  The team finished in 3:26.75 and took 2nd overall, so they are in the finals for Saturday.  If they finish 4th or better on Saturday, they will move on to the Regionals in the 4×400 as well.

Jonny was invited to run at the Wayne Invitational at Wayne High School in Huber Heights located near Dayton, Ohio. He was scheduled to run the 800 meter run. This meet is the highest level of competition, from all over the state, that Jonny has had to face in outdoor track competition. There were 39 schools invited to this meet.

There were 4 heats of the 800 meter run. There were 65 runners of which only 7 were freshmen. Jonny was in the middle of the pack of the 16 runners in his heat at the 500 meter mark when he made his move. He ended up in 3rd place and if there was another 50 meters in the race, he would have won his heat. He finished with a time of 2:04:34 and finished 28th overall out of the 65 runners. He really raced very hard the last 300 meters and gained lots of ground on everyone.