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Track and Field Cats Place Fifth in Avon Lake Invitational

By Matt Kelly '22, 04/09/21, 9:15PM EDT

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Despite a limited group of Wildcats, Saint Ignatius finishes in fifth in the Avon Lake Invitational.

The Track and Field Wildcats took a limited squad to the Avon Lake Invitational on Saturday, April 3rd, and placed 5th as a team. Jack McCarthy and the 4x100m relay team remain undefeated on the year, and the Cats saw new faces in new events from the field while many upper-level students rested for the meet.

In the morning session, the 4x800m relay team from Saint Ignatius won in the very first event. Ben Showman, Michael Mayer, Alex Paliga, and Joe Maloney ran 8:23.28 for a win by 10 seconds over Avon and the rest of the 13-team field. Showman ran 2:07 before handing off to Paliga, who came through 1600m for the team in 4:11. Mayer then ran 2:02 for the next 800m, and Maloney cruised through the anchor leg in 2:09.

Next in the 110-meter hurdles prelims, Damon Frabotta qualified for the final with a 16.79, and Jacob Rutkowski finished 11th among the three heats and 22 runners with a time of 18.87. Eric Shyne qualified for the final of the 100m with a prelim of 11.95 and Anthony Santagata ran 12.28 for 16th in the heats.

In the 4x200m, two heats made up the finals, and Saint Ignatius finished seventh in the last heat and eighth overall with a time of 1:37.47. The Cats entered the intermission with 10 points, two finals qualifiers in Frabotta and Shyne, and many more events to be run (and thrown and jumped).

In the second half, Shyne finished eighth in the 100m finals, and Frabotta won 4th in the 110m hurdles. Aidan Monroe battled familiar foe Evan Jarold in the 1600m and finished third in 4:34.9. The 4x100m team of Frankie Pike, Shyne, Edwin Abiakl, and Jack McCarthy then won for the second straight week with a time of 43.83, just a smidge off their time of 43.22 of last week.

Frabotta and Rutkowski came back again for the 300m hurdles to finish sixth and 13th in times of 43.68 and 46.11, respectively. Alex Paliga and Joe Maloney added seven points to the Cats’ total with fifth and sixth places in the 800m. The boys came through 400m together in 61 before Paliga broke away for a 2:04, and Maloney followed in 2:08.

McCarthy continued the undefeated season in the 200m, running 26.61 for the win in the final and a PR by .01 seconds from the prelims. Matt Kelly followed in the 3200m with a third-place finish in 9:47, running 4:48 and 4:59 for 1600m splits. In a loaded and action-packed 4x400m, Showman, Mayer, Abiakl, and Samurai Chung ran 3:33.89 to earn fourth place in the race!

In the field pits and at the ring, Owen Czyzynski and Peter McGreal both finished NH in the high jump but earned 9th and 16th in the long jump: McGreal went 18-10 and Czyzynski 18-03 in the running jump. McGreal’s jump was just 10 inches from earning fifth place.

At discus, Will Wytalis and Joe Kause finished 12th and 28th in 118-06 and 80-03, respectively. Back for the shotput, the duo earned 20th and 24th with throws of 37-00 and 35-03.5, respectively.

As mentioned, the Cats were short on guys in this meet in the middle of Spring Break. The Cats ran no runners in the 400m and just one man in both the 1600m and 3200m. The Cats were missing older throwers at shotput and discus and had no athletes in the pole vault. Despite these challenges, the Cats scored 64 points for 5th place.

Next week, the Medina Relays will see some stacked Cats relays, including the typical 4x1 and such but adding a distance medley relay, sprint medley relay, and 4x1600m! Slated for the DMR is Matt Kelly running the leadoff 1200m, McGreal running the 400m, Maloney taking over for the 800m, and Sean Uhran making his season debut as the 1600m anchor.

In the SMR (100m, 100m, 200m, 400m), the Cats will run Joe Norris, Santagata, Ryan Kennedy, and Chung. Also at Medina will be the 4x1600m relay. The meet record of 17:57.17 by the 2011 Medina team will be ambitiously challenged by a senior-studded lineup of Peter Fitzpatrick, Connor McAndrews, Joe Maloney, and Aidan Monroe. Field events will start at 10:00 AM on Saturday and running at 11:00.