Miles Rochester
Contributing Writer
The Wooster track and field team was on the road this past weekend for its fifth meet of the season: the All-Ohio Championships at Otterbein University. The Scots competed in 24 of the 34 events and six athletes achieved All-Ohio honors.
Athena Tharenos ’24, Haley Bloom ’23, Igna Mendez ’25 and Kayla Bertholf ’22 all earned their honors as part of the distance medley relay, in which the women placed second with a time of 13:09.82, only twenty seconds behind a formidable Case Western relay team. “At first I was very nervous because I wanted to run well for my team,” Mendez recalled when asked about the emotions coursing through her while competing for her first All-Ohio honor, “but when my teammates started running the relay, I stopped being nervous and just cheered for them.”
Track and field relays are the only team-oriented event and because of this, they pose different challenges as opposed to an open event, but they also have some upsides. Mendez called one of these upsides “the baton power,” and explained that “in relay, you have the baton power, [which] means you will run faster just because you are running for the team and not just yourself.” Commitment to each other, paired with their hard work, granted the women their moment on the podium.
The fifth Wooster award winner was Luke Henke ’23. Henke went into last weekend’s meet mentally and physically prepared to earn a top-three spot despite initially seeding at the sixth-place position for the men’s high jump event. Having jumped higher in his previous two seasons, Henke knew it was well within his abilities to disprove the rankings and reach his goal of being on the podium. Prior to the event, Henke knew that competition would be tight, but he insisted on “staying focused, having an aggressive approach and not letting [himself] lose to anyone who [he] didn’t think deserved to beat [him].”
Because of this mindset, Henke managed to achieve his goal and place third in high jump, earning the junior All-Ohio honors. When asked about what the All-Ohio honor meant to him and what had contributed to his success, Henke replied: “I’m pretty happy to have earned All-Ohio. The feeling was soured a bit because I always feel like I can jump better, but that just pushes me to not get complacent and keep working hard to get better and better and set my sights on even greater goals. I have a lot of factors contributing to my success,” he continued, “[such as] having really talented teammates that always bring energy and competition [to] practice, good coaches that care a lot about my performance and I definitely have to shout out the Reign energy drinks in the C-store because they’re so tasty and make my brain go fast.”
The final All-Ohio award granted to a Scot was to pole vaulter Dylan Garretson ’24, whose 14.675-foot ascent into the air granted him a third place finish.
Despite the men only finishing ninth of 18 and the women placing eighth of 16, commendable efforts were made by Wooster’s athletes, with many of them coming within inches or seconds of reaching the podium.
The Scots will make their next appearance at the upcoming Kenyon Classic on Friday, Feb. 18, where it is almost certain that the Scots will compete to the best of their ability.