Shady Side Academy won its fifth WPIAL team championship this year when the boys' track and field team easily bested the competition at the WPIAL Class AA championships yesterday at Shady Side Academy.
The track and field team joins the football team, boys' basketball team and boys' cross country team and the girls' field hockey team as 1998-1999 WPIAL champions.
Shady Side Academy beat New Brighton, 95 1/2-45 1/2; Washington, 90 1/2-50 1/2; and Shenango,101 1/2-37 1/2.
"It's been a wonderful year here," Shady Side Academy track and field coach Paul Ejzak said. "We're thrilled to do our part."
It was Shady Side Academy's first track and field team championship of any kind since 1939. The Indians were led by Zach Weidner, who won the 400-meter run (50.2 seconds), 200 (23.2 seconds) and was a member on the 400 relay team, which ran a 44.2. Charlie Cheever also shined, winning the 1,600-meter run with a time of 4:36, narrowly defeating Washington's Trayor Lesnock (4:37). Andrew Bell won the 3,200 with a time of 10:20.
In the field events, Maurio Medley, a key player on the football and basketball teams, won the high jump and high hurdles and placed second in the triple jump. Medley high-jumped 6 feet 2 inches, and won the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 15.4 seconds. He placed second behind teammates Tekky Andrew Jaja in the triple jump. Andrew Jaja jumped 41 feet 1 3/4 inches.
Stuart Ferguson won the discus. He threw 130 feet 6 1/2 inches.
"We watched New Brighton and Washington at the Mars and Baldwin Invitationals, and we thought it was going to be a close match," Ejzak said. "But our guys really rose to the occasion. They embraced the challenge."
New Brighton came in second, Washington third and Shenango fourth.
Washington came in thinking that they would beat us since they did at the Mars Invitational. That was a 76-76 tie that they won by tiebreakers though. They didn't realize then that we went into that meet right after some hard speed workouts, and that we were without Matt Hall and Maurio, two of the leading point scorers on the team that day. At WPIAL team championships, we threw the 4x800, losing to Washingotn and Shenango and beating New Brighton only becasue htey didn't field a team. Maurio won the hurdles, and Eugene Motoyama jumped in and picked up a couple third places as Matt Hall went down with a pulled hamstring unfortunately. Then Ian, Richie, and Rodney swept the 100 against Washington. New Brighton won the 100, but that didn't matter. In the mile, I won somehow--Trayor Lesnock was cathcing me, but somehow we got to the finish line before he passed me. Andrew Bell came in third in 4:39, and Jon Sheffield and Matt Martone (from New Brighton and Shenango) were a little bit behind. In the 4x100, we won--that team has a school record. Then in the 400, Reggie Smith of New Brighton had a sore leg and so Zak beat him. Zak also won the 200. In the 800, Trayor still had something left after his mile with me, and so Lenny got edged out by him in the last few yards, but they both ran 2:02s. André got third in the 800. Then in teh two mile, Bell won, Aaron took second, Sheffield took third, and I took fourth, completing the sweep of Washington and Shenango. The 4x400 was almost a victory, but André was a little bit tired from his sub--2:05 800 and we came up just short against Washingotn, yet beat New Brighton and Shenango. Stu dominated the throwing events and Maurio and Tekkie cleaned up in the jumps. It was a good day. And finally, we didn't end up in second place.