Bales Leads Colonels To 3rd Place At Apple Blossom Invite

Posted: April 28, 2014
By ROBERT NIEDZWIECKI
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — After the public address announcer informed the crowd at Kelican Stadium that 300-meter hurdles winner Owen Bales had recorded a time of 42.04 seconds — a personal-best that automatically qualified the James Wood senior for the regional meet — he enthusiastically began exchanging high-fives with teammates and opponents.

That seemed like that would be the high point of his day. But much to his delight, Saturday’s meet ended with teammates running toward him to celebrate an even bigger achievement.

Bales was handed the Jim Casey Outstanding Performer Award after winning both the 110 hurdles and 300 hurdles at the 46th annual H. Brian Landes Apple Blossom Track & Field Invitational.

“This is amazing. I‘m honestly kind of speechless. This is cool,” said Bales, who won the 110 hurdles by a remarkable 1.07 seconds with a time of 15.53 and the 300 hurdles by 0.85. “It’s been a perfect day. This is my last big home meet, and it’s a pretty good one to go out on.”

Bales led the James Wood boys — who also had senior Matt Vitagliano repeat as ABI triple jump champion — to third place, the best among local schools. Briar Woods was first with 80 points, Loudoun County was second with 75, and the Colonels had 51.

Sherando tied for fifth with 32 points, Handley was seventh with 30, Clarke County was 14th with 13 and Millbrook did not score in the 20-school meet.

Some of the other area schools were not at full strength Saturday. For example, Handley junior Dontae Mauck participated in a Nike Football Training Combine at Centerville High School, and Millbrook sent several of its best athletes to the MileStat.com Elite Track Classic, including Tyler Cox-Philyaw, Connor Faint and Alec Schrank on the boys’ side and McKenzie Schrank and Nadia Dahimene on the girls’ side.

But the host team looked plenty strong Saturday.

“I’m really pleased with what they did,” James Wood coach Matt Stegmaier said. “We’re really proud of our boys’ seniors. I think almost all our points were scored by our seniors except for Landon [Rutherford] in the shot put.” (Rutherford placed fifth.)

Bales picked up 10 of those points in the 110 hurdles, and it didn’t take long to see that there would be no drama in his heat of the event. Bales beat his best time this year by 0.26 seconds, and he was just .02 off his best-ever time of 15.51. Had he received any push at all from the opposition, he might have achieved it.

Bales figured to get a push in the 300 hurdles, but Woodgrove’s Josh Kenyon — whose seed time of 42.39 was better than Bales’ 42.48 — had a false start and was disqualified.

Interestingly enough, Kenyon might have saved Bales from the same fate — Bales said he was falling out of the blocks when the gun went off on Kenyon. But Bales was by no means relieved by what happened.

“I feel really bad for the guy,” Bales said. “He’s a really good guy.”

Bales just had to move on and prove he’s a really good athlete when he settled in his blocks again, and he made up the stagger by the end of the first 100. Though it looked for a split-second that he might fall after hitting the last hurdle, Bales said he felt confident he’d maintain his balance after hitting it.

“The [race] felt good, except for the last hurdle,” said Bales said. “I don’t know what it was. I just got really tired. But it feels really good [to win two events].”

His senior teammate Vitagliano is also feeling good after winning last year’s ABI triple jump while competing with a foot injury. With a winning mark of 43 feet, ½ inch, he was two feet better than last year’s winning jump and 1 ½ inches short of his season-best in repeating as champion Saturday.

“I feel like I’m jumping a lot better,” Vitagliano said. “I’ve already PR’d twice.

“I scratched on what would have been a state-qualifying jump by two inches (the state mark is 43-8 ¼), so I think [qualifying for states] is definitely a possibility.”

Other top performances for James Wood came from senior Logan Shiffler (third in the shot put with a 46-7 and third in the discus with a 130-0) and senior Sawyer Michelitch (third in the long jump with a 20-4).

Sherando had two winning performances delivered by junior Trent McCarty in the discus (135-0) and the 4x800 team of Noel Weber, Justin Hammer, Daniel Snapp and Ryan Hindle (8:18.85).

“I came out a little inconsistent today, but I got the one out there that I needed, and one’s all that it really takes,” said McCarty, whose best throw this year is 142-3 1/2, an improvement of almost nine feet from last year. “But I feel pretty consistent with my throws this year.”

McCarty only needs to improve on his season best by 1 ½ inches to achieve a state mark.

“I’ve gotten lot stronger than I was previously, and I’ve been pushing myself to work on footwork and form a lot more,” McCarty said. “That wasn’t something I really focused on a lot last year, but this year I’ve been getting myself across the circle and pushing out towards the front of the circle more than leaning back. I’m going to push myself a lot harder in practice and stay after to put in extra time to try and get [the state mark].”

The Warriors also had Snapp place third in the 800 in 2:05.44.

Handley had one individual champion in senior Jordan Dowrey, who won the shot put with a mark of 51-8. Handley coach Mike McKiernan said Dowrey did well just to achieve that, because Dowrey hurt his fingers in a weight-lifting injury this week. Dowrey’s injury was more of a problem in the discus, where the area leader in the event only took 10th.

“He’s been throwing from his palm rather than his fingers,” McKiernan said.

As far as the rest of the team, McKiernan was most impressed with Malachi Strother. The senior took second in the triple jump with a mark of 42-0, which is even more notable given the fact that Strother had never competed in track before this year.

“He’s a real worker, and he’s picking up things quickly and doing an excellent job,” McKiernan said. “The triple jump is such a rhythm event and is tough to pick up, but he’s doing great.”

Strother also helped a 4x100 team competing without Mauck turn in a strong performance, as he teamed with D.J. Frisby, Dominique Glover and Michael Felder to give Handley a third-place finish in 44.89, just 0.08 out of first place.

Clarke County was led by Matt Dietz (second in 52.14) and Millbrook was led by its 4x400 team, which took 10th in 3:43.26.

— Contact Robert Niedzwiecki at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.