The Talawanda Track & Field team put on a strong showing at the Dale Plank Invitational on April 16. The Brave hosted nine schools at its annual spring meet including Valley View, Ross, Monroe and Edgewood. The girls’ team finished in second place, 70 points behind Valley View, while the boys’ team came in fifth place, 120 points behind Valley View.
Individually, Brave athletes matched or set invitational records in four events. Junior Lucia Rodbro set a meet record in the 1600-meter race, finishing with a time of 5 minutes, 11 seconds – two seconds faster than the previous record. Another meet record was broken in the 3200-meter race by sophomore Adriana Luking, who finished in 11 minutes, 21 seconds – 49 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher.
Senior Olivia Andrews’s final home meet saw her tie the invitational record in pole vaulting with a height of 10 feet, 6 inches. Junior Maggie Stanton snagged second place in the event with a height of 9 feet. These two victories proved crucial in the points battle for second place.
Junior distance runner Bryson Fears captured first place and set an invitational record in the 800-meter race with a time of 1 minute, 59 seconds. Fears finished two seconds ahead of second-place Eaton runner, Wes Kitchin.
The boys also had strong showings in the 1600-meter and in the 800-meter relay despite having to substitute runners before the race.
“All these kids are team players, it makes it easy to throw different runners in,” distance coach Brad Mills said.
In the 800 meter relay, Talawanda finished in second place, 24 seconds behind Valley View. Until the final lap, however, the Brave runner and the Valley View runner were within one second of each other, but the anchor for Talawanda could not maintain his pace to the finish line. Still a strong result, as the Talawanda team finished 20 seconds ahead of third place.
In the 1600 meters, Talawanda saw a second and third-place finish by junior Victor Li and sophomore Jesse Troy. Li posted a time of 5 minutes, zero seconds, seven seconds behind Valley View senior Brady Garland. Li maintained a two-second gap with Garland until the final lap, when Garland opened the lead to a comfortable margin.
Another notable result came from the boys’ pole vault, where sophomore Nolan Hodgson finished in third place meeting his personal record of 12 feet.
“Anytime you jump at your PR it’s a good day, especially if you’re consistently hitting that mark. He’s come a really long way,” head coach Brad Hoblitzell said.
Invitational record breakers Rodbro, Luking and Fears are each headed to Louisville to compete in the Eastern Relays on Friday, April 19.
