Bryce Jones is the Man of the Meet

Cleveland Heights’ Bryce Jones won the 110- and 300-meter hurdles along with a combined field event at the Ned Weingart Relays held at Cleveland Heights High School on Saturday.

“Bryce Jones ended up winning the MVP of the meet,” Heights track coach Nick Continenza said. “He won the 110 hurdles first, which was a PR (personal record) for him. It was into a headwind, too. All of our races were in a headwind. That was pretty awesome that he was able to achieve that.”

Jones won the 110 in 14.87 seconds and the 300 in 41.23, also a personal best. Jones combined with Camerin Cross to win the high jump relay (12-02) and with Rashawn Dickerson for third in the long jump relay (37-11.50).

Other Cleveland Heights winners included James Moore, who captured the 3200 with a time of 10:39.76, and Dionte Saffo and Dickerson, who won the pole vault relay (16-0).

The 4x100 relay team of Marcus McShepard, Damon Legget, Saffo and Shelton Gibson won with a time of 42.60 for perhaps the meet’s most impressive performance.

“It’s a time that right now is second in Division I. I’m sure other teams ran fast this weekend, but that (42.60) ended up being the second fastest time,” Continenza said.

Gibson’s anchor was especially crucial to the top time.

“He got the stick down from Glenville by about 7 meters and just chased the kid down. They had no chance. It was a slaughter. You almost prefer that he’s behind because the time he’s going to produce will be ridiculous. The dude’s just a real textbook competitor,” Continenza said.  

Gibson took second in the 100 (10.93) falling to Nathaniel Harris of Buchtel, the defending state champion at 100 and 200 in Division II.

Gibson was also part of the fifth-place 800 sprint medley relay team of McShepard (100), Saffo (100) and Diontre Delk (400) at 1:38.47. Gibson ran the 200 leg.

In other relays, the 4x800 team of Samuel Franklin, Isaac Korb, Donovan Blair and Carlos Jones took fourth (8:59.68). Blair also finished fifth in the 1600 (5:17.06). In the 4x200 relay, McShepard, Legget, Cross and Delk took fifth (1:31.87). Dorien Hudson, Emanual Debramaletta, Dickerson and Legget were fourth in the 4x400 (3:31.35).  

For the girls, Krystal Ubani and Jordan Pickens took second in the shot put relay (52-06.75).

The Cleveland Heights boys’ team finished second out of 12 area teams with 98 points behind Glenville’s 150. The girls took ninth with 17, while Lorain won with 133.

Earlier in the week, the boys defeated visiting Shaw, 91.5-31.5, while the girls lost, 74-43. Legget won the 100 in 11.1.

Girls’ lacrosse

It seems nothing can slow down Ohio’s top team as the Tigers steamrolled another foe, crushing host Hathaway Brown, 17-9, on Thursday.

Meg Lentz had six goals and three assists, Olivia Lash had five goals and three assists and Tali Lugasy had three goals for the Tigers (8-1) who held their No. 1 ranking for a second straight week, according to laxpower.com.

“They played pretty efficiently. The offense played extremely well and scored a lot of goals against a pretty good team. The players who have led us in the past continued to shine,” Tigers coach Terry Saylor said.

The Tigers play at Hudson on Monday (5 p.m.) in a game that was rescheduled from April 4. Hudson (3-1) is ranked 11th.

“Hudson is probably one of the stronger teams in the state, and we’re both pretty well balanced with equal strengths. Both teams have a lot of speed. It should be one of the best games this year in the state,” Saylor said.

The team will also go on the road Saturday to face New Trier Township High School located in Winnetka, Ill., to finish the week.

Boys’ lacrosse

The Tigers can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Cleveland Heights collected its first win of the season, defeating West Geauga, 11-8, at home Tuesday. Mike Bryant and Mac Jones each had four goals and two assists, while goalie Mike Arnold had 16 saves.

“The team really played well all the way across the board. We got solid goaltending and great team defense with good communication,” Tigers coach Curt Kassigkeit said. “We really started to move the ball around and got good productivity out of the offense.”

Just when things were clicking for Cleveland Heights (1-5), host St. Edward came along to dampen the mood, crushing the Tigers, 15-3, on Thursday. Jones had two of the Tigers goals.

Bad field conditions from inclement weather during the week postponed the Tigers’ game against Beachwood on Saturday. No new date has been set yet.

This week, the Tigers will host Benedictine on Tuesday (7 p.m.) and North Canton-Hoover on Thursday (7 p.m.) and travel to Bay Village on Saturday (2 p.m.)

Baseball

Tough weather conditions continue to be the story for Cleveland Heights as Saturday’s scheduled doubleheader at Beachwood never got off the ground. The week’s relentless rain damaged the field and back-loaded more games.

“It’s a drag, but we’re in better shape than most,” Cleveland Heights coach Mike Dillon said.

Earlier in the week, the Tigers (7-5, 5-1 Lake Erie League) went 2-0 with a cancellation sandwiched between the wins.

The Tigers throttled Warrensville Heights, 13-1, on Monday and downed Maple Heights, 10-0, on Thursday. Weather claimed their game at Warrensville Heights on Tuesday, but Dillon hopes the game will be rescheduled.

Wil Sharon (3-1) got the win against Warrensville Heights, while Tyler Rudy had a home run, four RBI and scored three runs.

Sam Gillispie (2-2) evened his record for the season pitching five innings while giving up one hit and striking out nine against Maple Heights.

The team hosts Shaw on Monday and is away at Shaw on Tuesday (both 5 p.m.) Bedford comes to town on Thursday (5 p.m.) and the Tigers play a pair of games at Zanesville against John Glenn (1:30 p.m.) and Zanesville (4 p.m.) on Saturday.

Dillon points to the Zanesville and Bedford games as being crucial to the Tigers’ efforts.

“That’ll be the last game (Zanesville) we play prior to going into the sectional tournament drawing meeting on Sunday. It’s kind of a big week for us to get some wins to build our record up and improve our chances (for seeding),” Dillon said.

“But the Bedford game is big because both of us have one loss in the league and we split with them. Whoever wins that game would be a leg up.”

Tennis

The good news for No. 1 singles player Aleksi Vihanto is that he won his first match of the season against Mentor on Wednesday. The bad news is that Tigers coach John Laskarides thumped him in a practice set Saturday.

“I still have this cannon serve, and I rely on it heavily … trust me,” Laskarides said. “I’m 42, but I played high school and college tennis. I opened it up on him a little bit. He’s pretty good. He’s very skillful.”

For the sake of Vihanto’s pride, we’ll not mention the score here because it’s not an official stat.  As for the Mentor match, Vihanto defeated Alex Catanese, 6-0, 6-3. Overall, the team lost the match, 1-5, and is 0-6 on the season.  The junior varsity squad is 5-1.

Bad weather knocked out Cleveland Heights’ other matches for the week.  

Next week, the Tigers hope to fit in matches Monday through Friday at home against Beachwood, St. Vincent-St. Mary, at Lorain City Schools, at Midview and at Andrew’s School. All matches begin at 4 p.m.