MOGADORE — Streetsboro has been running well for a while now.
The Rockets have picked up a number of runner-up trophies throughout the 2026 season, including at the Don Faix and John Kudley invitationals. That said, championship trophies are a little more fun, which made Streetsboro’s sweep of the Wildcat Invitational team titles April 30 especially exciting.
“It’s feeling great,” Rockets junior Carman Marcini said. “We put a lot of effort out and we came into here with a lot of confidence and it felt really good to win.”
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If the Streetsboro girls slowly strolled over to Mogadore girls coach Kim Kreiner to accept their trophy, the boys stormed over like they were still running their 1,600 relay.
“Just a little bit too excited,” Rockets senior Ethan Laryea said with a smile. “I mean it’s normal. You have a bunch of young guys that are really proving themselves, they’re really competitive, so winning is a new experience for them and they’re just enjoying it.”
One of those young runners, Isiah Henderson, asked Laryea to say a few nice words about him before heading toward the bus. It wasn’t hard for Laryea to do after the sophomore turned in a stellar 11.27 to win the 100 meters title.
“He really came up out of nowhere,” Laryea said. “Before the season started actually, he’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, Ethan, we’re going to state.’ I had never seen him run before. I was like, ‘Yeah, all right, whatever.’ First couple of meets, okay, he runs smooth, and then I think it was the Woodridge meet, boom, he just explodes.”
Rockets coach Robb Kidd has certainly taken notice as well.
“Isiah Henderson is a name that people will want to start watching,” Kidd said. “He got a really good start to the season, but he’s been coming along the last week and a half, two weeks. He’s probably running the best of all my sprinters right now, and that’s impressive.”
Laryea, who finished fifth in the state 200 last year, is always among Kidd’s top sprinters. He didn’t run any individual races at Mogadore with the Optimist Meet coming up two days later, but he was a part of Streetsboro’s championship 400 and 800 relays.
“It’s a fight to really get on the relay,” Laryea said. “Coach Kidd said it himself. We have six guys competing for four spots, and even though we had a team that made it to state last year, we have a bunch of new guys coming in. So just that competitive nature of it, knowing that your spot is not secure, we step on this track and everyone’s trying to put down their best time.”
The Rockets boys won two other events en route to their team title, with Hayden Rudd prevailing in the 110 hurdles and Ty Zipprich and Jaiden Kendrick going one-two in the 400.
Marcini was a part of three titles for the Streetsboro girls, winning the long jump (16-9½) as well as running on the Rockets’ winning 400 and 800 relays.
“We take a lot of time in practice to practice relays,” Marcini said. “That’s most of our practices. We have a really close bond with our relay teams.”
The Streetsboro girls swept the jumps between Marcini’s long jump title and junior Sara Koyan, her soccer and basketball teammate, winning the high jump (4-10). Rockets sophomore C’Niyah Ivory added a championship in the 100 (13.02).
Ivory was closely followed by Garfield senior Mandy Cardinal (13.21), who is drawing ever closer to the school record. Cardinal, a Ursuline College basketball commit, also earned runner-up honors in the 200 and has proven an indispensable part of a G-Men team that nearly overtook the Rockets at night’s end.
“She’s almost to the 12s,” Garfield coach Kelliann Fry said. “That’s the goal. Our school record is 12.9, so we’re really trying to push for that to hope that maybe she can get close to that. She’s getting closer and closer every time.”
Garfield also got an eye-opening performance from Olivia Kuchenbecker, who swept the hurdles. The sophomore won a tight race against Streetsboro star Olivia Johnson-Wilson — who made the state podium as a sophomore — in the 100, then edged Mogadore state hopeful Ava Murphy in the 300. Perhaps most remarkable, Kuchenbecker has only run the 300 a handful of times this season.
“The problem is figuring out which four events she’s going to be doing,” Fry said. “She can literally do anything.”
Garfield freshman Lina Kaufman tallied 18 points in her individual events, winning the 1,600 and finishing runner-up to Southeast senior Julia Wheeler in the 800. G-Men senior Conner Hunt added championship performances in the seated 100, 400 and 800, though those points didn’t count toward the boys team standings.
The G-Men’s runner-up finishes — boys and girls — were also keyed, per usual, by their throwing prowess. Elise Edwards (121-6) and Hannah Timmons (115-0) went one-two in the discus, Riley Grace added a shot put title (36-9) and the G-Men boys racked up 18 points in the throws. The boys also secured titles by William Simon in the 200, Derek Blunk in the 3,200 and 3,200 relay.
Mogadore also had its moments on its home track, capped by Cam Brady sprinting down the home stretch of the 1,600 relay for his third title of the day. Brady earlier won titles in the 800 and 1,600 while fellow senior Jason Garvin celebrated the Wildcats’ Senior Night with a state-worthy mark of 21-11 to win the long jump title.
“Those three boys, Cole [Barcus] and Cam and Jason, for the boys, they set the tone every day in the work ethic and how positive they are,” Mogadore boys coach Ann Murphy said. “They set the bar high for the others, too.”
Contact Jonah L. Rosenblum at jrosenblum@recordpub.com and follow him on Twitter at @JLRSports.
This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Streetsboro track teams sweep Wildcat Invitational titles
Reporting by Jonah Rosenblum, Ravenna Record-Courier / Record-Courier
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