District delight: Clear Fork sprinter, Lex girls lead strong area showing

ONTARIO — Joe Stupka is one of those special high school sprinters who just might wow you off the track as much as on.

After sweeping all three dashes in record time in Saturday’s Division II district track and field meet, the impressive Clear Fork junior talked about the standards he has set for himself – not all of them having to do with a stopwatch.

“I’ve been taught a lot by coach (Eric) Beck and coach (Andrew) Saris,” he said, referring to his current head coach at Clear Fork and his former head coach at Madison. “They really taught me off the field how you have to carry yourself when you’re having success.

“People are always going to be out to get you no matter what. They’re going to be looking for anything they can (pick at), so don’t give it to them. My dad (former Madison football coach Dave Stupka) has always said, don’t let them win. You’ve just got to keep carrying your head high after a bad day. Keep pushing.”

Bad day? When was the last time he had one of those?

Ever since he broke out at the indoor state meet, by medaling in the 60, 200 and 400, Stupka has been topping himself on virtually a weekly basis.

His statement season seemingly came full circle Saturday when he won the 100 in 10.8, the 400 in 49.63 and finally the 200 in 22.12, all meet records. (The records date back only to 2021, the year Ontario began hosting the meet.)

Back on March 30, Stupka kicked off the outdoor season by returning to his former school and setting meet marks in all three dashes at the Madison Invitational.

“I really take pride in the range I have,” Stupka said. “Coach Beck is like, if you can do three events at a high level, not many people can do that. So I take a lot of pride in that.”

The boys 200 was this meet’s marquee event. Stupka, Huron’s Connor Schaeffer (who finished ninth at state last spring) and Milan Edison’s Trayvon Williams all broke the meet record in Thursday’s prelims.

But when it really counted, the race belonged to Stupka in 22.12. Schaeffer finished in 22.21 and Williams in 22.71. And Stupka was the only one of the three who ran the 400 before it, so his legs weren’t as fresh.

“I knew Connor was going to come out and give me a good push. He’s been doing it all year,” Stupka said. “He came in as a higher seed, but I knew we were going to be neck-and-neck.

“It means a lot to get that win and I’m really confident going into next week.”

Not only will Lexington be hosting the DII regional Thursday and Saturday, but it will also give the newly-crowned home team a chance to feed off its district championship on its own oval.

The Lex girls made it six meet/invitational titles in a row this spring, winning the 4 x 200 meter relay and producing 15 regional qualifiers en route to a 118-110 victory over Huron.

In two races, the 200 and 3200, Lex had double qualifiers. The top four finishers in each event move on to regionals.

The team of Alli Laury, Josalynn Patterson, Makenna Arnolt and Emily Thomas ran a 1:45.78 to win the 4x2. Thomas anchored that relay and the third place  4x1 and also finished runner-up in the 100 and 200.

On Thursday, Elyana Weaver finished second in the high jump (5-2) and was part of the runner-up 4x8 relay. Those 16 points and five more from Clarissa Cousart for finished fourth in the discus set Lex’s title drive in motion.

“The girls had a great meet,” coach Michelle Smith said. “It was a total team effort. We got a lot of field points early. Our 4x8 was clutch. Our distance girls were clutch. All of our relays advanced. I don’t know if that’s ever happened.

“We’re super excited to be at home (for regionals). I think some of our freshmen are pretty confident at home. They aren’t going to be nervous like they would be going somewhere else. So we’re excited. We hope to be top four.”

Lex, coming off a repeat title in the Ohio Cardinal Conference, dropped from DI to II this spring, making next week’s homecoming possible. But with the move down in divisions came pressure, because Lex had always fared well at districts in the bigger division as well.

“This (title) is huge because the expectations were higher since we were no longer Division I,” Smith said. “There was a lot of pressure on the girls because we are Division II. They’ve just been working hard ever since indoor season and the coaches have done a great job getting them prepared.”

Ontario’s Sasha Bulakovski continued to look like anything but a freshman, winning the 400 in a personal best 1:00.45. She gives a ton of credit for her success this season to a pair of role models: senior teammate Ally Potter and assistant coach Rachel Miller, a former state hurdles champ for Ontario and All-American in the 400 for Ashland University.

“Ally taught me a lot about how to go into a race, and Rachel has been helping me with my block starts and telling me how to get into a race,” Bulakovski said. “They’ve just given me so many tricks on how to run (the 400). Since I’m a freshman, I don’t have much experience. They’ve just helped me so much.”

Shelby had a great meet, its boys and girls coming away with eight district champions: the boys 4x8 (on Thursday), along with Madison Henkel in the long jump (16-9.25), Huck Finnegan in the 3200 (9:48.61), Kayla Gonzalez in the 3200 (11:09.3), Marshall Moore in the 800 (1:59.76) and Ava Bowman in the 100 (12.54), 200 (26.2) and 4x1, which she anchored to a winning time of 50.27.

Joining Bowman on that crew were Henkel, Alainah Carmel and Jaleeza Zehner.

“All my work on my blocks helped me gear up for today,” Bowman said.  “I love feeling powerful coming out of the blocks in the 100. I used to run the 400, but the 100 just feels less taxing. I feel like it’s my niche.

Henkel gives the baton to Bowman in the 4x1, so you have a freshman handing off to a sophomore on the final two legs. They may be young, but the moment’s not too big.

“We work really, really hard in the offseason and our goals, obviously, at this time of the year are to really push,” Bowman said. “This is what we’ve looked forward to all year, so we take that pressure and use it to our advantage.”

Gonzales set a meet record and personal best in the 3200 and even though she had to settle for second in the 1600 she beat her winning time last year by nine seconds.

“I definitely put the most energy out in the 1600 and I wanted to see what I had left in the (3200),” she said. “That was a PR, so I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

Gonzales wants Lisa Smith’s 1989 school record (11:01) in the metric two mile, but knows she is running out of time.

“I think (it’s doable),” she said. “I want to go sub-11, so that would get it.”

Finnegan was in no hurry to get to the front of the pack in his 3200 win. He tucked in behind the three leaders for the first four laps and then made his move, beating his winning time and meet record from last year by eight seconds.

“I just let them pace me for the first mile,” he said. “I knew they were going to go out quick and I was like, yeah, (fourth) is where I want to be. And then I closed pretty quick. It felt good.”

Complete results from the meet, including all of the regional qualifiers, can be found at freddieboosters.org.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: District delight: Clear Fork sprinter, Lex girls lead strong area showing