Bay Girls Track & Field Wins CWC Championship!
Bay Girls Track and Field team put together the kind of complete two-day performance that wins championships, piling up points across the track and in the field to claim the CWC title with 129 points. The Rockets finished 11 points ahead of the defending champion, securing the program’s first conference championship in more than a decade after a meet that was decided by depth, balance and several timely top-three finishes.
The push started in the throws on the opening day. Senior Riley Mitchell successfully defended her conference title in the shot put, giving Bay another individual championship, and senior Leila Ghaffari delivered one of the meet’s early surprises by moving from a projected ninth-place finish into second. Bay also picked up a key runner-up result in the girls 4x800 relay, where senior Anne Weber and freshmen Kai Ripley, Chloe Vincent and Maya Gonzalez turned in the team’s best time of the season. Those performances helped the Rockets close the first day with a narrow 26-24 edge.
On the second day, Bay’s field-event group kept the scoring coming. Mitchell added a seventh-place finish in the discus, while junior Susie Hargett placed fourth with a season-best throw. In the pole vault, underclassmen Gigi Waters and Anika Schulz either tied or set personal bests while finishing fifth and sixth. Sophomore Ruby Render then added more points in the jumps, taking fifth with her best mark of the season, improving her previous top effort by more than five inches.
The Rockets carried that momentum into the hurdles and relays. Junior Ainsley Scheid scored with an eighth-place personal-best finish in the 100-meter hurdles, then returned later for another PR while placing seventh in the 300 hurdles. Mckenna Adkins also produced a personal best in the 300 hurdles, finishing fifth and just missing the 50-second barrier. Adkins helped swing the team race in the relays as well, stepping in because of an injury and leading off Bay’s second-place 4x200 and 4x100 teams alongside fellow juniors Birdie Krueger and Evin Mason. Mason, usually a 400 runner, also shifted roles and helped both relays deliver runner-up finishes.
Junior Annie Willmitch was central to that sprint success. Earlier in the meet, she took second in the 100 dash, then anchored both relay teams to season-best performances. In each race, Willmitch received the baton in fifth place and surged Bay into second by the finish. Her anchor in the 4x200 was especially important, as the Rockets edged the third-place team by .001 seconds for critical team points. Willmitch later returned in the 200 and posted the fifth-fastest individual time in program history, capping a day in which she accounted for a team-high 32 points.
Bay’s distance runners delivered the meet’s decisive stretch. In the 1600, Maya Gonzalez won her first conference individual title and Weber added a fourth-place finish, giving the Rockets an eight-point lead with seven events remaining. After the margin tightened, Gonzalez came back in the 800 and won again with a personal-best time that was just .31 seconds off the school record, while Vincent finished seventh with a PR to move Bay back in front. The clinching moment came in the 3200, where freshmen Clare Messmore and Ripley ran together throughout the race before finishing third and fourth. Their closing points secured the championship and completed a meet in which Bay outperformed projections in 10 of 17 events.
Congratulations to the girls and huge thanks to all of the staff, support, and parents who helped make this season happen. The Lady Rockets will visit the track again next week at Amherst as they work to compete at the State meet in Columbus. Good luck, ladies!
