Staff photo / Preston Byers Girard’s Janaya Riley crosses the finish line to win the girls 4x100-meter relay at Friday’s Division IV regional finals at Austintown Fitch High School.

AUSTINTOWN — The top several performers in each event of Friday’s Division IV track and field regional finals at Austintown Fitch qualified for next week’s state meet, but some local athletes left no doubt they were going to Columbus.

Girard’s girls 4×100-meter relay team – Laiyah Pappa, Terri Gregory, Janaya Riley and Khloe Pieton – earned its spot at state with a first-place finish, during which they turned in a 48.68, their best time of the season.

“All of us did our part, and we did amazing,” Pappa said. “All our coaches are happy. … We put it together today, and it worked out.”

Pieton said the team expected to do well, but that might have added to the pressure.

“Knowing that you’re good, you get even more nervous because you have such a big shoe to fill,” Pieton said. “But honestly, when you give it to [Riley] your last leg, and she just goes, you know that you’re going to win.”

Mineral Ridge thrower Jonathan Culp III similarly felt the nerves Friday.

Despite entering the boys shot put as the favorite, the sophomore admitted he did not have his best start to the day.

“It took a while to get going, but I just slowed down a little, and that let me get my good throws in,” said Culp, who improved by more than three feet from his first throw.

“I think I was a little excited at the beginning. “I just realized I have to get the technique down before I really get it.”

By the end, Culp cleared the rest of the field by a wide margin. With a best throw of 56 feet, 4 inches, no other thrower finished within four feet of Culp, whose personal record is 58 feet, 2.25 inches.

Next week, he will return to the state meet, where he finished sixth last year as a freshman.

The Cardinal Mooney 4×100-meter relay team will also return to Columbus after winning Friday’s regional title. The Cardinals edged out West Muskingum with a time of 42.98 seconds.

“We’ve been working all year for this, so this wasn’t really a big deal,” Tony ‘Blue’ Jackson said. “We came out here, did what we had to do. We’re just trying to break the record for our school, and we’re trying to come out here and do our best and compete.”

Despite the win, the four are sure they can do much better once they’re on the track at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium, where Jackson said they are aiming to run 42 seconds flat.

“[We did] decent, we could definitely do better, work on some hand-offs,” Riley said. “But it’s all right, I think we did well. … The pressure is definitely on us now, running 42s. Everybody wants our head, but we ain’t gonna let them get it. We’re gonna keep running, we’re gonna keep running fast.”

ON TO COLUMBUS

Garfield freshman Lina Kaufman said her coaches wanted her to “take a risk” during Friday’s girls 1600-meter run, and to best prepare for the race, put her through a tough workout earlier in the week.

She obliged, finishing in third place and running a personal record of 5:13.59.

“They told me I could make it tonight,” Kaufman said of her coaches. “I mean, I was nervous going into it because I’m a freshman and I’ve never done races like these before, but it felt good. We got out fast.

“I qualified on Wednesday in the two-mile, so I was trying not to put too much pressure on myself because I had already made it to state no matter what happened in this race. … So my coaches just told me to go out and take a risk. I knew one of the girls up front, I knew Julia [Wheeler], and I was like, ‘I’m going to try to stay with her as long as I can.’ And I did that.”

LaBrae’s Brayden Clark had a similar race in the boys 400-meter dash, in which all eight competitors finished within 1.2 seconds of each other.

Fortunately for Clark, he was in the top five, placing second with a time of 49.73 seconds amid a cluster of runners vying for a spot at state.

“I put a lot of pressure on myself. I definitely get very nervous,” Clark said. “But I mean, the second the gun goes off, it all goes away.

“The only thing on my mind was just trying to get that [spot at state],” he said. “I really wanted first, but I was just trying to place as high as I could.”

Likewise, Pymatuning Valley’s Will Baugher did not have a lot on his mind during the boys 300-meter hurdles; in fact, he said the only two things he wanted to accomplish was breaking the school record of 40.44 seconds, and, of course, making it to Columbus.

While he finished second, clinching his spot at state, Baugher said he was convinced that he had missed out on the record when he clipped the final hurdle and stumbled ahead of the finish line.

When he peeked at the scoreboard, though, Baugher was elated to see that he had run a 40.22. He yelled, threw his hands in the air and beamed with pride before congratulating another competitor.

“I didn’t think I was getting the record just because I hit that hurdle,” Baugher said. “I really thought it slowed me down enough, but I used my stride and made it through it.”

Next week, during his first trip to state, the junior hopes that another last-second mistake doesn’t happen.

“I expect a lot of good racers,” he said. “I expect myself not to choke.”

BUSY WEEK AHEAD

The OHSAA track and field state championships will begin on Thursday at Ohio State’s Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium with Division IV and V. Division III events will begin on Friday, while Divisions I and II will start their events on Saturday before both concluding on Sunday.