Bay Girls Track & Field Opens Season with Runner-up Finish at Nelson Howe Invitational

Bay High School opened its girls track and field season with a second-place finish Thursday at the Nelson Howe Invitational at Firelands High School, led by several standout performances on both the track and the field.

Senior Riley Mitchell started the team’s scoring by winning both the Shot Put and Discus, impressively setting a new PR by over 10' in the latter! Joining Riley in the scoring was junior Jaiden Latimer-Smith, who started her season with an impressive 4'6", 6th place finish in the High Jump.

On the track, freshman distance standouts Maya Gonzalez, Chloe Vincent, Elyse Edelman, and Kai Ripley started their high school careers with the Rockets in impressive fashion by winning their first ever event and taking 1st in the 4x800. Kai would later finish 4th in the 800 while Elyse and Maya would enjoy 1st place finishes in the 3200 and 1600, respectively.

In the hurdles, junior Ainsley Scheid and junior McKenna Adkins both took 5th in their respective events, the 100m and 300m hurdles.

In the sprints, junior Annie Willmitch picked up where she left off, winning the 100m Dash and later taking 2nd in the 200m Dash, continuing her consistently impressive performances stretching back to her freshmen year. Annie would earn another runner-up finish, this time in the 4x200m Relay, joining Jaiden, fellow junior Birdie Kreuger, and sophomore Ruby Render. Ruby and Birdie would later earn a 3rd place finish in the 4x100m Relay with the help of McKenna and newcomer freshman Lily Kamm. The final event of the day, the 4x400, saw junior Evin Mason return to the distance, as she had earlier earned a 5th place finish in the open 400m, and with Birdie, sophomore Violet Powell, and freshman Meg Webster, helped lead the group to a 3rd place.

Finishing six points behind host Firelands, the Lady Rockets enjoyed a great opening meet, and look to continue their strong start next week at home (Wednesday) and at Lakewood Relays (Friday).