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Rockets hope to soar at state

Tribune Chronicle / John Vargo Maplewood's Jake Hall celebrates at Friday's Division III Massillon Perry Regional Track and Field Meet after his team qualified for state in the boys 4x400-meter relay.

MASSILLON — Mark Yoder assessed the situation after Friday’s Division III Massillon Perry Meet.

He saw the time of 3:24.52, a new school record in the boys 4×400-meter relay — smashing the old mark.

“That was the end of a pretty good day for us,” said Yoder, the Maplewood boys track and field coach.

Senior Jake Hall, who anchors that relay, came across the finish line, .27 seconds behind Smithville for third place, raised his arms and celebrated the win with junior Ethan Sparks, senior Alex Ventura and sophomore Race Shipman.

“To really dig it out like that felt good,” said Hall, who is going to state in the 800 and as part of the 4×800 and 4×400 relays.

Sparks, who qualified in three events (1,600, 4×800 and 4×400) like Hall said this year is much different after being an alternate on last year’s 4×800 relay.

“To be one of the top guys in the 4×800 and 4×400, that’s crazy to me,” Sparks said.

They almost took Zach Dawson down to Columbus in the shot put as well, but he finished fifth by less than foot — launching his second-best throw to come one spot short of state. The top four in each regional advanced to this weekend’s state meet in Columbus, starting Friday morning.

Sparks is looking forward to seeing his 4×400 relay even go faster.

“I feel like we’re going to tear it up,” he said. “We’re all going to pop off times and do something remarkable down there.”

Now the 4×800 is another story. The team of Sparks, Hall, senior Nick Cowger (all returners from last year) and junior Adam Burgard, ran 8:07.39. East Canton ran 8:05.06. Fort Loramie comes in with the fastest regional qualifying time of 8:01.76.

St. Thomas Aquinas edged out Maplewood last year for the Division III state title in the 4×800 relay — an event the Rockets seemed on track to repeat.

Nothing is a given this year.

“Anything can happen at state,” Hall said. “That’s been shown before. We’ll go down, take our chance and see what we can do.”

Maplewood and Yoder are confident, but they aren’t saying why.

“I don’t want to tell you any secrets,” he said. “We’re going to drop a lot of time next week. Let’s put it that way.”

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