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Fort Recovery's Karlie Niekamp lets the discus fly en route to winning the event at the Mercer County Knights of Columbus Track and Field Meet.
Compiled by Gary R. Rasberry
The rain subsided and temperatures warmed for the start of the 2025 Mercer County Knights of Columbus Track and Field Invitational on Tuesday, and the performances were hot at Cavalier Stadium in Coldwater.
The host Cavaliers are the first-day leaders in the girls division with three events completed, tallying 28 points with Fort Recovery second with 18 and St. Henry and Celina tied for third with 15 points apiece. Marion Local (12) and Parkway (4) rounded out the scoring.
On the boys side, Marion Local jumped out to a big lead with 49 1/2 points with Coldwater second with 32 1/2 and Celina third with 29. St. Henry has eight points with Parkway and Fort Recovery each scoring two points.
The high school boys pole vault was one of the most contested battles all day between Celina's Zaden Rolfes, Coldwater's Carter Glassford and Marion Local's Wade Kremer. All three cleared 14 feet. Rolfes claimed the title based on fewer attempts. Glassford was second and Kremer was third.
Marion Local's Derek Grieshop edged teammate Kyle Ungruhn to win the high school boys shot put at the Mercer County Knights of Columbus meet.
Marion picked up its first victory in the shot put as teammates Derek Grieshop and Kyle Ungruhn dueled. Grieshop's best effort of 48-10 1/2 was better by eight inches on Ungruhn's 48-2 1/2 to give the Flyers 18 points.
The second victory came in the high jump as Max Ranly cleared 5-10 to take first over Coldwater's Jack Bruns and Celina's Logan Kerns, who each topped out at 5-6.
In the lone running final of the day, the Marion Local quartet of Dalton Pohlmann, Trey Goettemoeller, Isaac Bruns and Ryan Stucke won the 4x800-meter race in 8:28.88, over 15 seconds ahead of runner-up Coldwater.
Coldwater's Ava Lefeld, back, hands off the baton to teammate and cousin Channing Lefeld in the 4x800-meter relay.
The Coldwater girls took first in the 4x800 as Lana Kaiser, Ava Lefeld, Channing Lefeld and Audrey Alig were 17 seconds ahead of Celina with a time of 10:03.96.
Cavalier Izzy Zahn got her meet underway with a win in the long jump. The defending Division III state champion finished with a top leap of 18-2, over a foot more than runner-up Morgan Baumer of St. Henry.
The only other high school final of the day was in the discus, where Fort Recovery's Karlie Niekamp rolled to a win with a top effort of 116-2, nine feet farther than teammate Elisa Evers.
Among the highlights in the running preliminaries was Fort Recovery's Anna Roessner breaking two of her own meet records. Roessner broke the mark set last season in the 100 dash with a time of 12.16 seconds, then later broke her own 400 dash record set a year ago with a time of 57.97 seconds.
Celina's Jon Lutz broke a 35-year old record in qualifying for the 110 hurdles, finishing in 14.35 seconds to break the mark held by Marion Local's Jason Winner of 14.50 set in 1992.
The final high school record broken on the day came in the boys 400, where Victor Hoelscher took over a second off the mark set last year by fellow Flyer Wesley Schoen, with Hoelscher winning in 49.39 seconds.
In the middle school division, Coldwater's girls takes the opening lead with 42 points with Celina second with 31 followed by Marion Local (12) and Fort Recovery (1). The St. Henry boys lead with 43 points with Coldwater (34), Fort Recovery (23), Marion Local (17) and Celina (6) following behind.
Winning in the middle school girls final events on Tuesday were St. Henry's Brielle Dingledine in the discus, Celina's Brenna Korte in the long jump and the Celina 4x800 relay.
The St. Henry boys 4x800 relay set a meet record with a time of 9:26.50, taking over two seconds off the old mark set by St. Henry in 2023. Redskin Jackson Langenkamp edged teammate Quincy Brown by one inch to win the shot put. Coldwater picked up two wins as Jonah Gruss won the high jump and Ethan Schmitmeyer took first in the pole vault.
The meet concludes on Thursday. The high school girls pole vault begins at 4 p.m. with remaining field events starting at 4:30 p.m. Running finals get underway at 6 p.m.
Anna swept Minster and Spencerville in a three-team event at Memorial Field. The Rocket girls beat Minster 89-73 with the Anna boys getting a 75 1/2 to 74 1/2 win over the host Wildcats.
Max Knapke won both hurdle events for the Wildcat boys. Charlie Winner took first in the pole vault. Will Frimel won the shot put with Jakob Davis taking first in the discus. Tyler Bergman won the 400.
Claire Bohman (400), Adriana Kremer (high jump) and Riley Hagens (pole vault) picked up the wins for the Minster girls.
