Shawnee’s Schartz makes it back-to-back CBC titles

Her sister set the bar with a pair of Central Buckeye Conference high jump championships. Now Shawnee High School junior Hannah Schartz has a chance to raise it.

Schartz won her second straight CBC high jump championship – and matched her sister’s title haul – with a 5-foot, 1-inch effort Tuesday at Shawnee High School. Benjamin Logan junior Madison Manns also cleared 5-1, but Schartz claimed the tiebreaker on jumps when Schartz cleared 5-0 on her first attempt and Manns needed two tries.

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Schartz and Manns also tied last year at 4-10 with Schartz winning a jump-off tiebreaker.

“I was kind of nervous at first but I thought, ‘It’s me and the bar. I just have to focus on that,’” Schartz said of having the competition down to her and Manns when two other jumpers failed to clear 5-0.

Schartz topped a field of 13 jumpers on the first day of the league meet that also featured finals in the boys long jump, boys discus, boys pole vault, girls shot put and the boys and girls 3,200 relay. Running preliminaries were also held to determine the championship field for Friday.

Schartz matched her sister Haily, who won a pair of CBC high jump titles with Kenton Ridge in 2014 and 2015. Hannah nearly cleared 5-2 on Tuesday but barely hit the bar to knock it off.

“It felt like I was about an inch or so over it, but I closed at the wrong time and I hit the bar with my butt,” she said.

Her sister Haily’s personal best was 5-3. Schartz has a chance to clear that this season, as well as return next season for an opportunity to win her third straight CBC title.

“My sister jumped in high school so I watched her and tried to do what she did,” said Schartz, who still solicits advice from Haily. “She really likes to critique me when she can and tell me what she thinks works best. … My parents were telling me to try high jump because if Haily was good at it maybe I would be good at it, too.”

In other finals on Tuesday, Tecumseh’s 3,200-meter boys relay team of Ethan Adams, Stephen Mattingly, Clay Mastin and Garrett Gemmaka shattered the school record with a winning run of 8 minutes, 8.44 seconds. The previous record of 8:18 stood since 1974.

Tecumseh beat Jonathan Alder (8:14.48) thanks to a large lead going into the fourth and final leg. Holbrook said the Arrows wanted a 35-40 meter lead going into the final leg that featured Tecumseh’s Gemmaka against Alder’s Jase Headings, who Holbrook called likely the CBC’s best 800 runner.

“We knew we had to have the lead on him because he’s a strong kid,” Holbrook said of Headings, who signed a National Letter of Intent to run at the University of Cincinnati. “We were hoping for a 35-40 meter lead with the time difference between Garrett and Jase and he had about a 100 meter lead.”

Northwestern junior Adam Riedinger won the discus with a throw of 162-05 feet to beat Indian Lake senior Tyree Whaley’s 141-02. Riedinger’s biggest competition was expected to come from sophomore teammate Korbin Spencer, who entered the CBC meet with a top-seeded effort of 167-09. Spencer fouled on all three of his attempts.

“Korbin pushes me and it kind of stinks he didn’t get it tonight,” Riedinger said. “I haven’t really seen him foul all year.”

Riedinger is the favorite heading into Friday’s shot put final with a top-seeded throw of 58-09. Spencer is second at 53-05.

“I’m pretty confident for the shot,” Riedinger said. “That’s my main event so I’m excited.”

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