Westview Junior High boys track wins state title

May 23—EMMA — State championship hardware was recently brought back to LaGrange County.

The Westview Junior High boys track team won a state title this past weekend, scoring 40 points at the state championship meet hosted at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. They beat second-place Woodside Middle School (Fort Wayne) by 12 points to win the single-class title.

"It's a pretty big deal," Westview head coach Don Williams said. "We had a lot of talent on the team this year. Coming in from last year, we actually got fifth place in state last year and we had a lot of our guys returning, so we knew we actually had a chance at it this year. It's a really good feeling overall. Coming into school on Monday, there was a lot of good vibes going through the hallways."

Westview produced one individual champion in Austin Schlabach. The eighth grader won the 100-meter hurdles race in a time of 15.84 seconds, beating Woodside's Tisdale Braylin by 0.17 seconds. The winning time from Schlabach was actually slower than his personal best, as he ran the race in 15.08 seconds earlier this season to set a new school record.

What impressed Williams most about Schlabach, though, was something he did before the race.

"Just before he won that state title, they had to move all of the hurdles onto the track," Williams said. "There are nine lanes with 10 hurdles each, so its 90 hurdles you have to move onto the track, which is kind of a process. They were kind of short some workers down there, so Austin Schlabach went out there and he was actually putting the hurdles on the track. He was the only athlete down there, and that's right before he won state. He was just out there helping out because it was the right thing to do."

On a weekend full of highlights, Williams noted that one stood above the rest.

"Yeah, winning state and setting records is great, but a kid of that athletic caliber is out there helping the workers — I was super, super proud of that," Williams said. "That was my proudest coaching moment down there, watching him do that and showing that character and sportsmanship."

Westview had three, third-place showings at the state finals as well. Eighth grader Jarius Lambright was third in the pole vault with a height of 10-09 feet, while eighth grader Daniel Yoder took third in both the 800-meter run (2:08.65) and the 1,600-meter run (4:37.36).

The time from Yoder in the 1,600 set a new school record, which had previously been held by current Westview High School freshman Noah Bontrager. Noah's father, Lyle, is an assistant coach with the junior high team and was encouraging Williams to let Yoder run in the event because he knew Yoder could potentially break the school record.

"The weather hasn't been great this spring, and Daniel Yoder was trying to break that record but hadn't had a great chance to do it," Williams said. "Lyle was like, 'We have to give him a chance to break it,' and that's pretty great that he was selfless enough to want another kid to have a shot at breaking his own son's record. I feel like Lyle Bontrager's head is in the right place and he's for the kids."

Two relay teams then scored points for Westview to round out its scoring. The 4X400-meter relay team of eighth graders Schlabach, Carson Niccum, Micah Wingard and Kaine Reinhold finished fifth with a time of 3:47.39, while Niccum, Lambright, Reinhold and Wingard combined for seventh place in the 4X800-meter relay with a time of 9:06.70.

The 4X4 time was a new school record. Schlabach also set the school record in the 400-meter dash earlier in the season, giving him three records personally.

"I've probably had more records broken this year than the last 10 combined," Williams said. "I had so many great athletes that were breaking each other's records. These are records that have been standing for a decade-and-a-half. It seemed like we had a record broken every meet. It's a real pleasure to coach not just really good athletes, but some of the top athletes in the state of Indiana."

Williams, a former Northridge High School and Goshen College track athlete in his own right, has been coaching junior high track at Westview for 17 years. He also teaches seventh and eighth grade social studies classes, meaning he's around his athletes on a day-to-day basis.

Along with winning a state title, the Warriors went unbeaten in regular season meets and won its 12-straight Northeast Corner Conference championship, the most in conference history. Not only that, but Williams noted how close-knit this year's group was.

"I take my oldest (son) to practice sometimes, and the kids are just so good to him," Williams said. "They have their own fist bumps; they have their own handshakes with him. It's a special group of kids to coach. Even if they weren't winning state titles, it would just be super fun to be with them all the time."

Austin Hough can be reached at austin.hough@goshennews.com or at 574-538-2360. Follow him on Twitter at @AustinHoughTGN.