OHSAA state track meet: Oakwood girls win 3,200 relay

Grace Hartman crossed the finish line almost nine seconds ahead of the next runner Friday at Pickerington North High School.

Oakwood led the 3,200-meter relay — the first running event of the day — from the first lap to the last, claiming the Division II state championship at the first Ohio state track and field meet in two years.

A year ago, the pandemic caused the cancellation of the entire spring season and prevented Oakwood from improving on a fifth-place finish in the event in 2019. Hartman, who was a freshman on that team, ran the last lap then and did so again Friday.

Oakwood’s winning time was 9 minutes, 14.98 seconds.

“We’ve all been working super super hard,” Hartman said, “and the last couple weeks, we’ve had a decent bit of success. This is what it all came down to. We just put our heads down and get the work done.”

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Two of the members of the relay team, sophomores Bella Butler and Emma Almoney, were in eighth grade the last time the state championship meet was held in 2019.

“We didn’t know exactly who was coming in,” Hartman said. “We didn’t think we’d have a complete team, but these two girls, they came in and helped us. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without them. It’s awesome to see that happen and come together.”

The other member of the team, senior Hannah Moulton, said their time was slower than their qualifying time (9:08.72) because they wanted to conserve themselves for their other races. They competed in the preliminaries in the 1,600 relay later in the day, hoping to qualify for Saturday’s finals.

Butler also qualified for state in the 1,600 and 800; Hartman will run the 1,600 and 3,200.

“We have a lot of races tomorrow,” Moulton said. “We just did what we needed to do.”

The area had two other teams atop the podium in the 3,200 relay. Waynesville finished fifth (9:31.67), and Carroll placed seventh (9:36.31).