More than 24 hours after he had earned three medals at the Division III state track and field meet at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium in Columbus, Woodmore senior Brock Avers was still on cloud nine.

“I'm just so happy,” Avers said. “I never dreamed about going down there in three events and placing. I'm just speechless. I can't believe I'm done with track.”

Avers placed sixth in the 800 meters and helped the Wildcats' 4x800 and 4x400 relays place sixth and seventh, respectively, in Columbus. Woodmore junior Carly Pendleton placed second in the discus in the Division III girls meet.

Woodmore's 4x800 relay team of junior Grant Weirich and seniors DeVaughnte Askew, Avers and Justin Garver qualified to the state meet in 8:06.88. The foursome, however, turned in a season-best time of 8:02.47 to finish sixth in Columbus.

Askew, Avers, Weirich and Garver – running in that order – placed seventh in the 4x400 in a school-record time of 3:24.20. Their state-qualifying time was 3:25.21.

“My main expectation was to go down there and run my best,” Askew said. “Being a senior, I wanted to end on a good note. We wanted to get on the podium. One of the best things about going to state is that you're running against the top 1 percent of all the teams from Ohio. We had three returners (in the 4x800) from last year, and Grant did really good running 800s.

“When you get to state, everybody is right there on you and you have people pushing you a lot harder. The seniors, we wanted to end on a good note. Grant understood how much we wanted it.”

Askew, Garver and Avers were on the Wildcats' 4x800 relay that took third at state last season. The fourth member of that relay, Chris Jacobson, graduated and was replaced by Weirich, who went out for track as a junior this season after taking a year off.

“I'm glad Grant got on the team,” Avers said. “He stepped up big time. He had to fill C.J.'s shoes. I thought we were going to be a good team. After regionals, I knew we could do this. I knew Grant could do it. If he wouldn't have come out for track this season, we never would have made it to state.”

Garver said, “When you're running with good competition, it just pushes you. We peaked at the right time, too. We were probably in our best shape and we were expecting a lot out of ourselves. We knew the feeling from last year and we wanted to try our best again and see where it got us.”

There were tense moments for the Wildcats' 4x400 relay.

“We barely made it to our finals,” Woodmore coach Brian Ryman said. “We had a hot preliminary heat where we were sixth. We were kind of worried if we were going to get in the finals. Only one team in the second heat was faster than us, so that ranked us seventh fastest going into the finals and we finished seventh. We ran a second faster than we did in the prelims.”

Avers said he and his teammates were “shocked” when they learned they had qualified for the finals.

“We got sixth in our heat and never thought we were going to make it through prelims,” he said. “We were shocked we even got there. We said, 'Let's go run our hearts out and run the best race we ever could and break another school record.' ”

Askew said, “We knew we were in a fast heat, but what were the odds that six teams would come out of our heat. I remember I looked back at the guys and said, 'I think our season's over. I don't think we made it.' We were looking up at the scoreboard and we saw the second place time. We made the finals by one-tenth of a second. We kind of snuck in there and we ran our hardest. What else can you ask for?”

Avers saved his best individual performance for last in the 800. His sixth-place time of 1:58.08 was a career-best.

“I was sixth or seventh coming out of the first lap and I said, 'I can do this,' ” Avers recalled. “I was so happy being down there at state. I was ninth at the 200-meter mark and I passed a couple guys with about 100 meters left. I ran the best race I've ever ran. I was dead at the end. It hurt to stand because my legs were burning, but I ran my heart out.”

Pendleton, who was unable to practice for more than a month because of a stress fracture in her right foot, qualified to the state meet with a throw of 146-11. Her best throw of 147-6 at state earned her a second-place finish behind McDonald senior Joh'Vonnie Mosley, who set a school record at 151-4.

“I thought I did really good under the circumstances,” Pendleton said. “I couldn't practice for about a month. I didn't want to re-injure it. Now I'm 100 percent better. My goal is to PR every meet. I did as well as I could under the circumstances, and (Mosley) threw really well.”

Pendleton, the younger sister of former state discus champions Emily and Erin Pendleton, missed making the state meet by two inches last year.

“That made me work so much harder,” Carly said. “I couldn't believe I didn't make it out of regionals two years in a row. That frustrated me beyond belief and I just went out and worked my hardest, and it paid off this year.”

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