A mighty growl: Tigers beat the heat for regional title
LEXINGTON – With the mercury rising, the Galion Tigers rose to the occasion.
In the hottest conditions of the track season, senior sprinter Drake Barnett played a role in three school records and an even bigger role Saturday in helping the Galion boys win a Division II regional championship at Lexington High School.
It's believed to be the first regional track title for Galion since the 1990s.
Barnett anchored the second-place 4x200 and first-place 4x100 meter relays to record times of 1:29.35 and 43.05, respectively, and also set a school mark with his second-place finish in the 200 dash (21.78). He missed qualifying for next weekend's state meet in Columbus in a fourth event when he finished fifth in the 100 by .03 seconds.
"He's an animal," Galion coach Todd Roston said. "You don't see many like Drake. I'd like to see him get on the podium at least once at state so that he can be All-Ohio in three sports."
Barnett, headed to the University of Findlay to play football, was a first-team all-state running back. He also medaled this past winter at the state wrestling meet. And now he'll have three chances to earn a medal at the state track meet Friday and Saturday inside Ohio State's Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium.
Not bad for someone told by one doctor to give up sports entirely after tearing his labrum early in the wrestling season.
"(The doctor) said that, but I wasn't listening. I was laughing at it, honestly," Barnett said. "I would never give up sports for that minor an injury."
Joining Barnett in both relays will be senior Houston Blair and junior Colin McCullough. Rounding out the 4x200 team was junior Caleb Ivy, while senior Jacob Fryer was the fourth runner on the 4x100.
Blair, who also qualified for state in the long jump, obviously made the right choice coming back to the track team this spring after sitting out last season to concentrate on AAU basketball. Actually, it worked out in both sports for him because the News Journal All-Star Classic participant will be playing basketball at Bluffton University, alma mater of his basketball and track coach Colby Bright. They are cousins.
"I didn't have option; Colby was going to make me come out (for track)," Blair joked. "I figured I'm a senior, so why not? I didn't play football and Colby played football (for Galion), so I figured I'd give him something."
Blair never envisioned it leading to a regional title for the Tigers. After losing a district crown by 3.5 points to Lexington, the Tigers turned the tables on the host Minutemen, who finished third with 40 points behind Galion (46) and Eastmoor Academy (43).
"We had a lot of people qualify for this meet and they performed well in this weather," said Roston, who runs the boys and girls program with Bright. "(The heat) is hard to prepare for. It changed so fast. It was a dramatic change. But the kids fought had."
Other state qualifiers Saturday for Galion were Taylor Valentine in the girls 100 hurdles (third, 15.44), Dani Court in the girls discus (second, 120-9) and Colton Moore in the high jump (fourth, 6-5).
Court was seven feet off her PR, but if the trade-off is going to Columbus, she'll take it.
"I'm pretty happy, especially since I was fifth here last year," she said about missing state by one spot. "Every year I've been improving. My senior year I had some big throws. I've been preparing four years for this."
Moore is trying to get back to 6-6 in the high jump. He hit that mark for runner-up honors at the Mehock Relays in mid-April.
"I suffered a hyperextended knee and ankle sprain in the same week, so I'm just now getting my strength back," he said. "I should be really close to 100 percent by next week."
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