(June 6th and 7th, 2015) – COLUMBUS: The Locomotive boys had a spectacular showing at the State track meet, thanks in large part to the efforts of junior Dylan Snyder.
As part of the school’s 4X100 meter relay team, he helped teammates Dallas Royer, Hunter Shaull, and Simon Wang qualify through the preliminary race to earn sixth place, with a time of 44.37. In the final race of the event, their time dropped slightly, falling to a 45.13 to take home eighth place against the elite field.
Individually, Snyder competed in two events as well. In the 110 meter high hurdles, he made it out of the preliminaries with a second place finish at 14.99. The final race would prove much more difficult, however, as the junior standout fell to a still impressive sixth place by running a 15.09.
Meanwhile, in the long jump, Snyder came within a quarter inch of a state championship. His leap of 22’04” was barely bested by Northmore jumper Demetrius Johnson, who landed a 22’04.25” jump. Still, the efforts of Snyder were enough to propel his team to fourteenth place with 12 points.
For Pettisville, Ethan Brakefield carried the entire load, as he was the only Blackbird to make it to the highest level of competition.
Running in the 300 meter hurdles event, Brakefield qualified from the prelims with a sixth place showing at 40.19. While he fell back to seventh place in the finals with a time of 40.37, he was just over a second behind first place finisher Chad Zallow, of Warren JFK, who completed the run in 39.06.
Brakefield’s efforts were enough to give Pettisville a sixty-fourth place finish out of seventy-two teams with two points.