Senior Josh Ripley’s 800 meter run to close out the RBHS invitational summed up the day for the Bruins. For the last 100 meters of the race, no one was in touching distance of Ripley. It was a day filled with domination for RBHS; something that has become a habit of theirs in recent track meets. Ten guys came in first in their respective events including Oklahoma City commit, Lucas Harrington. On the girls side, senior Kayla Funkenbusch and eight others finished first.
This was the team’s last meet before the postseason. Junior Grant Sykuta said the boys all competed very hard which is important more than anything else.
“I think the team performed very well,” Sykuta said. “This was the last regular season meet for us, so it could be easy for everyone just to slack out, but we really did hard work out there.”
Junior Faramola Shonekan placed second in the 800 meter dash and sophomore Ojurere Shonekan won the 100 meter dash and the long jump. RBHS also won in both boys and girls 300 hurdles and many of the team made new personal records, with many milers breaking five minutes.
“It was a small meet, so there wasn’t much competition,” Shonekan said. “It was pretty much just Battle and two other teams, but my relay won the 4×200 and the 4×100.”
Senior Ripley and Harrington came first in the 800 and 1600 meter dash respectively while in the sprints were dominated by seniors Brendan McLaughlin and Clayton Baumgartner. The underclassmen also pitched in as sophomore Carlo Montano came in first in his jump routine while sophomore Carson Raetz dominated his vault event. Overall, junior Brendan Fish taught this event was a great tune-in to the postseason.
“There were high-fives all around today,” Fish said. “Everyone did really well, so it was a fun day out there.”
By Harsh Singh