Bay Girls Track & Field Completes Regular Season with 3rd Place at Bell Invitational!

Bay Girls Track & Field closed out its final regular-season with a dual meet at Normandy and then a third place finish at the Rocky River Bell Invitational, with several fine performances in both meets.

On Tuesday, the a limited group traveled to Normandy, as the majority of the team prepared for the Friday meet at Rocky River, but several girls performed well despite the constant rainy conditions at Byers Field. The entire throws team had great efforts, led by senior Riley Mitchell and Leila Ghaffari while underclassmen Susie Hargett and Chloe Pyroes dodged the rain to put in strong throws as well. On the track, senior Abigail Feiszli had a fantastic final 1600 while sophomore Ruby Render put had a great start to win the open 200m.

On Friday, the Varsity group traveled to nearby Rocky River for the Bell Invitational, and it was the throwers who once again started the scoring for the Lady Rockets. In the Shot Put, Riley took 4th while Leila and Chloe took 10th and 12th, respectively, while in the Discus, junior Susie Hargett took 6th with a PR of 93-8 while Riley added to the team score with an 8th place throw. In the jumps, junior McKenna Adkins enjoyed a season best jump as she and Ruby took 7th and 8th while in the Pole Vault, sophomore Gigi Waters also had a season best in taking 3rd overall. Newcomer Anika Schulz joined Gigi in the scoring with a 5th place finish in the same event.

On the track, the 4x800 team of Elyse Mull, Chloe Vincent, Lili Lawnicki, and Clare Schearer took 6th place, leading distance coach, Coach Snyder, to exclaim, "WOW! Four PR's!" Speaking of "wow," freshman Maya Gonzalez continues to impress, breaking her own record for the third meet in the row, this time breaking the five minute mark in the 1600 with an amazing time of 4:58.13! Maya would later come back to earn another gold medal, this time in the 800, while distance teammate and senior co-captain Anne Weber ran near her PR to take 6th, all the more impressive considering the conditions and her coming back from a cold. Wrapping up the distance events was freshman Kai Ripley, who took 5th in the 3200, scoring in her second straight Varsity invitational.

In the hurdles, junior Ainsley Scheid placed third in the 100m event, running right behind two of the best hurdlers in the CWC and did the same later in the meet in taking 4th in the 300m hurdles. Sophomore Violet Powell joined her in the scoring, taking 5th with a personal best in the event while junior McKenna Adkins stole the show with a 2nd place PR, narrowly missing out on breaking the 50 second mark!

Speaking of stealing the show, junior Annie Willmitch continues to impress, as she enjoyed another 1st place finish in the 100m dash and then later took 3rd in the 200m with a fantastic final 100m surge. Annie wasn't done there as she anchored both the 3rd place 4x100 and the 6th place 4x200 relay teams, assisting Birdie Krueger, McKenna, and Evin Mason in the former and McKenna, Birdie, and Ruby in the latter. In the final event of the evening, Ruby, Birdie, Evin, and Bridget Rettig wrapped up the scoring for the team with their 6th place finish in the 4x400.

When it was all said and done, the girls put in some fantastic performances over the course of the wet and cold evening and now turn their sights to the postseason, starting next week at the same track - Rocky River - for the Cleveland West Conference championships!

Congratulations to everyone who participated over the course of the week and good luck to the entire team next week as the postseason begins!