PIQUA — Davis Hoeflich, Marcus Hoeflich and Devyn Oswalt have been running the 4×100 relay together for a long time.
Long enough to know each other’s intricacies, likes and dislikes and the ins and outs of what it takes to be a good relay team.
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So, when the Clear Fork trio was given uber-athlete Nash Evans as a fourth teammate the week leading up to the district meet, there was an adjustment period. But it was an extremely short one. On Saturday, May 30, at the Division III regional championship track and field meet at Piqua High School, the Clear Fork quartet put all of their short work together in spectacular fashion by winning the regional title with a 42.24.
“What makes it crazier is this is only our third race we have ever run together,” Evans said. “Winning a regional championship despite not a lot of time running together during an actual meet is kind of crazy.”
Three races in and the quartet looks like a well-oiled machine as they topped Ontario’s second-place squad by .19 seconds and the defending regional champions from Shelby by .43 seconds.
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Imagine what they can do in their fourth race when they hit the track at the OHSAA State Track and Field Championships at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium on the campus of The Ohio State University next week.
“I think it tells us that we can only get faster in the future,” Marcus Hoeflich said. “We have only run together three times, so we feel like in the prelims at state and hopefully in the state finals, we can keep dropping our time as we continue learning about each other.”
Adding Evans, who also took second place in the regional long jump competition with a leap of 21-feet, 2-inches to advance to state, has taken the relay team to a new level.
“I don’t think there is a ceiling right now,” Oswalt said. “Our 4×100 wasn’t even in the equation until we added Nash like a week ago. We dropped an entire second in our first race together and we are getting faster and faster every time. Marcus and I will work on our handoff some more because it was a little rough today, but we got it done. We feel like we can go sub-42.”
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To go sub-42 with less than a handful of races together is unheard of, but it isn’t like the Colts haven’t been training for something like this all season. In practice, they mix things up and make sure they are all ready for any kind of wrinkle that might be thrown their way.
“How our team works is we train to be versatile,” Oswalt said. “In practice, we run with everyone in every single relay. I ran in all three relays with these guys and Landen McKee, Ethan Beck and Aidan Haring and Nash in the 4×200. So, it’s not like we are unfamiliar, but it’s different in practice to race time.”
Davis Hoeflich had to be ready for anything on Saturday, too. After taking second in the boys high jump after clearing 6-06, he had to run to the check-in station to apply for the 4×100, run back to the podium to receive his runner-up medal and run back to his teammates who were getting ready to line up for the race.
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“I was a little bit tired because we did have a long high jump competition, but it wasn’t all that bad,” Davis Hoeflich said. “It’s only 100 meters.”
Hoeflich was locked in a battle with Dayton Dunbar’s Chrishod Averette in the high jump. Averette took this round clearing 6-7, but Hoeflich will have his chance at revenge in next week’s state tournament. Hoeflich is already a three-time state qualifier in the high jump taking second as a freshman, but an injury kept him from placing last season.
He is ready for a better encore this year.
“We jumped against each other in indoor a couple of times, and it is always so much fun to jump against big competition,” Davis Hoeflich said. “I am feeling so much better than last year. My last couple of meets, I’ve gone 6-6, 6-4, 6-6, so I am right where I want to be.”
Part of a school record state qualifier haul for the Colts, the 4×200-meter relay team of McKee, Oswalt, Beck and Haring is headed to state after taking fifth in the regional meet with a 1:29.40 for an automatic qualifying spot.
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Senior Nathan Wine is headed to Columbus in the boys shot put after tossing a 53-00.25 to finish fifth in the regional meet for an automatic qualifying spot.
Senior Julian Mills is moving on in the discus after taking fifth in the regional with a 152-05.
Evans is also going to state in the long jump after finishing as the runner-up with a leap of 21-02 at regionals. He will compete in three events in Columbus.
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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Clear Fork to send haul to OHSAA state track and field championships
