West Liberty-Salem’s girls track and field team got off to a strong start Tuesday on the opening day of the Division III district meet at Graham.
The Tigers’ 3,200 relay team of Mallory Bostick, Ashley Yoder, Teagan Boyd and Megan Adams won a district title in 10:07.34.
That performance helped the Tigers to a fourth-place finish through three events.
Anna currently leads the field with 23 points, Botkins has 21 points for second, Houston is third with 16 points and the Tigers and Cedarville both have 11 points to share fourth.
Triad is currently ninth in the girls meet with three points and the Triad boys are sitting eighth in the boys meet with eight points.
In another finals event Tuesday, the Tigers’ Mandilyn Weaver finished eighth in the high jump (4-8). Isabella Hardwick had a career PR in the shot put (29-5.25) to finish 12th and Kenzie Bahan placed 13th in the shot put (29-5).
WL-S also qualified a big group of athletes to the finals of the running events.
Competing in the running finals on Saturday will be Sophia Hardwick (17.37) and Alaina Irving (17.45) in the 100 hurdles, Delaney Jones in the 100 (12.70) and 200 (27.28), Sophia Hardwick (49.66) and Claire Longshore (50.06) in the 300 hurdles, Megan Adams and Ashley Yoder in the 1,600, Mallory Bostick and Ashley Yoder in the 800, the 800 relay team of Lilly Weaver, Claire Longshore, Mandilyn Weaver and Sophia Hardwick (1:55.38), the 400 relay of Lilly Weaver, Delaney Jones, Alaina Irving and Mallory Bostick (53.03) and the 1,600 relay of Mallory Bostick, Megan Adams, Teagan Boyd and Delaney Jones (4:16.90).
For Triad’s girls, Cayla Eaton finished sixth in the high jump (4-10). Mia LeMay was 14th in the shot put (29-3 1/4) and Arlo Monroe was 17th in the shot put (25-4).
Eaton has the top qualifying time in the 300 hurdles (49.39) and the thirdfastest qualifying time in the 100 hurdles (16.36), the Cardinals’ 800 relay team has the third-best qualifying time (1:53.21), Shalyn Smiles has the fifth-fastest qualifying time in the 1,600 (5:58.91), Abbey Overfield has the eight-best qualifying time in the 400 (1:05.20) and the 1,600 relay team has the eighth-fastest prelim time (4:32.60).
For Triad’s boys team Tuesday, Tyler Gross was third in the discus (135-7), the 3,200 relay team of Joe Ferguson, Mason Harper, Jacob Haser and Wyatt Robison finished eighth (9:19.32) and Harper was eighth in the long jump (17-9).
Also for the Cardinals, Ferguson qualified for Saturday’s finals in the 800 with a time of 2:12.67.