WARSAW – The 10th Annual Lakeview Relays took place on Friday night at Lakeview Middle School and despite the cold weather, young athletes from four local middle schools created more than enough heat on the track.

Though the meet included four teams, it was clear that the trophy would go to one of the two teams donning orange and black. In the end it was Edgewood that beat out its rival, Lakeview for the boys track title by a score of 41-38. Churubusco took third while Wawasee finished in fourth.

It took awhile for Edgewood to rack up the points it needed to claim first place as the Tigers only won one field event, high jump with a team height of 18’4″. Churubusco took first in both discus (386’7.5″) and shot put (144’6″). Lakeview placed first in the long jump with a distance of 60’9″.

Wawasee found itself shorthanded on Friday night but still managed to win one event. The Warriors took first in the evening’s most unique event, the shuttle hurdles. Each team has four runners for the event, two on either end of the ten rows of hurdles. Once the race begins the first runner completes the hurdles, allowing the second runner to take off and so on. Wawasee’s time of 1:14.00 took first by a comfortable margin.

 

It was hard to find a track event that Edgewood did not take first in. The Tigers won four of the eight track events on the night, taking first in the 4×800 (9:43.96), 4×100 (49.85), mid-distance medley (4:30.55) and 4×200 (1:45.37).

Lakeview kept things tight with its wins in the distance medley (9:30.29) and 4×400 (4.05.82). Lakeview also took second in five of the eight track events, but just did not have enough to edge out Edgewood.

Churubusco’s lone track win was in the sprint medley with a time of 1:53.

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Edgewood head coach Tim Devlin was ecstatic for his boys win and attributed it to the team’s ability to endure the pain and obstacles that the season can bring.

“We stayed healthy, that was key for us tonight,” said Devlin. “We had a lot of guys running through some pain tonight, a few guys with shin splints, but they’ve been enduring pain and weather all season and did it again here tonight.”

Devlin later talked about the excitement that surrounds the Edgewood and Lakeview kids before a meet like this.

“This is a fun event,” Devlin said. “We get to combine seventh and eighth grade runners into one race and then of course those kids get to run against Lakeview’s kids. So a lot of kids get to run with kids that they have not ran with before, and these two school’s obviously combine at the high school level, so, in a year a lot of these guys will be teammates.

“It’s special for these guys to compete with guys that they will be teammates with next year. I know a lot of these guys have close relationships through football or basketball and it’s nice to have that out here on the track.”

Edgewood will travel to Plymouth to compete against Lincoln Junior High on Tuesday before heading to Wawasee Middle School for a conference meet against the Warriors.