A year after having no state placers at the Ohio High School Athletic Association state meet, the Aurora Greeenmen girls track and field team earned fifth place, scoring 30.5 points at the OHSAA Division II state meet last weekend at The Ohio State University’s Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium.
“I think it just proves after everything we went through last year, we knew we had to come back stronger,” said senior Isabella Cicero. “We were stronger mentally and stronger physically and as a team we had one goal and that was to dominate, and I think that is what we did.
The Greenmen girls qualified eight to the Division II state meet across 10 events and placed in six races, including two relays.
On Sunday, the quartet of seniors Isabelle Leindecker, Elizabeth Phillips, Olivia Leon and Cicero finished Aurora’s season of redemption by finishing in fourth place in the 4×400 relay with a time of 3:58.80.
The team overcame a slow start after the first two laps as Leindecker and Cicero made up time in their respective 400-meter legs of the race.
Leindecker, who had placed fifth in the 400-meter dash with a personal record 56.19 seconds, moved the relay team from eighth to seventh place in her leg, and Cicero, who had just run the 200-meter dash and 400-meter dash, where she finished in third place with a career best 55.77 seconds, which marked the 12th fastest time in Division II this season, ran the anchor leg in a time of 56.57 seconds, picking off three runners to move the Greenmen into fourth place.
Cicero acknowledged that she was unsure how much more she had left after running two sprint races earlier in the day but knew she still had a job to do.
“It was my last high school race,” she said. “You have to do what you have to do. The anchor relay, that is your job, you have to find it within you.”
On Saturday, the Greenmen also were propelled by their underclassmen as freshmen Claire Jenkins, Evelyn Jenkins, Audrey Miller and senior Abigail Rogonjic finished in fourth place with a time of time of 9:16.97 in the 4×800 relay.
After sitting in 11th place after the first two legs of the race, Miller brought Aurora to the front of the pack, moving the team into fourth place after running her 800-meter leg in a time of 2:14.09 and Evelyn kept the team in fourth place in the final 800 meters.
“I got the baton, and my goal was to take the team to as close to the front as possible and I just took it one person at a time,” said Miller. “I knew it would hurt but I just gave it everything I could from the last lap to try to put the team in the best position as possible.”
Miller excelled in the other distance events, finishing fifth in the 3200-meter run with a personal best 10:42.55, the 16th fastest time in Division II this year, and took fourth place in the 1600-meter run by logging a time of 4:56.27.
Senior Riley Verespej was Aurora’s other individual state placer, tying for sixth place with Green senior Ella Sifferlin, by clearing the bar at 11 feet, 6 inches in the high jump.
According to Verespej, she earned her own personal redemption by becoming a state placer just a year removed after breaking her ankle at the OHSAA Division I district meet last year, where she won a district title and set the school record before her season ended early.
“I am proud of my comeback,” Verespej noted. “I knew I was going to do it. Comebacks are my favorite thing to do, I have done them multiple times but this one means the most because it made me fall back in love with the sport.”
In addition to the Greenmen girls’ team placement, two of the three Aurora boys who qualified to the OHSAA Division II state meet finished their season as state placers.
Junior Luke McGovern was a double-state placer, taking fifth place in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.66 seconds and finished as the runner-up in the 200-meter dash, clocking a personal record 21.06 seconds, the fourth fastest time in Division II this year.
“It feels great after lots of hard work, it finally came together so I am happy,” McGovern said. “I have just progressed every year and kept working so I did the work up to this point.”
Senior Johnny Trivisonno placed third in the long jump, recording a distance of 22 feet, 9¾ inches. Trivisonno secured third place when he recorded his longest distance in his fifth jump.
“I have put in a lot of work over the last season and came up very short last year,” he said. “I didn’t make it out of the regional meet, so it was nice making it through this year.”
Senior Nathan Eminian wrapped up his Aurora career by rallying late to finish in eighth place in the 3200-meter run with a career-best 9:20.63.
Eminian appeared to be out of range to secure a state-placement after the sixth lap but persevered, moving from 12th to eighth place in the final 800 meters of the race.
“Every lap I thought about each one of my seasons, all of my eight seasons of running and it made me forget the laps and made me run fast,” he said.
