BALTIMORE — The Mountain Ridge girls captured the Class 1A girls track and field state championship, and area athletes won eight gold medals at the state meet that concluded Monday at Morgan State’s Hughes Stadium.
Mountain Ridge is the first Western Maryland school to win a girls track and field state championship since the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association began awarding titles in 1975.
“It’s surprising because there have been a heap of really good teams up here filled with good athletes,” Mountain Ridge track and field coach Jaron Hawkins said. “Fort Hill had a phenomenal state meet on both the boys side and the girls side. They just didn’t have the volume of kids like we had.
“It was really, really hard to do, and Brunswick gave us everything they had. And it took us picking up some points that we weren’t supposed to score to be able to pull it out.”
Allegany was the Class 1A girls runner-up in 2024 and Southern finished second in 1999.
There have been seven boys MPSSAA track championships won west of Sideling Hill, with Fort Hill capturing six of them (2015, ‘05, ‘98, ‘64, ‘54, ‘52) and Beall the other (1975).
The Miners edged Brunswick 74.5 points to 71.5 for the championship. Fort Hill finished sixth (44), Allegany was 11th (32), Southern ended 19th (eight), and Northern tied for 21st (four).
Smithsburg won the boys Class 1A team title. Fort Hill was fifth (37 points), Mountain Ridge took eighth (33) and Allegany tied for 30th (six).
The Miners’ girls team was paced by 1600-meter champion Sophia Brill (5:08.78) and its 4x800m relay, which consisted of Brill, Ashlynn and Aynsley Hawkins and Fiona Ruddell.
It also captured a silver and five bronze medals thanks to the efforts of Aynsley Hawkins, 3200m runner-up in 11:43.91 and 1600m third place in 5:20.99, Carolyn Hughes, 100m hurdles third place in 15.45 and 300m hurdles third place in 46.33, Caroline Orndorff, long jump third place (16’), and its 4×400 relay that took third (Orndorff, Ruddell, Brill, Hughes).
Also garnering top-eight performances for the Mountain Ridge girls were Brill (800m, fourth, 2:21.53), Alyah Hutchens (pole vault, sixth, 8’ 6”), Ashlynn Hawkins (triple jump, seventh, 32’ 6.50”), Mauriana Sweitzer (high jump, seventh, 4’ 10”), Aynsley Hawkins (800m, eighth, 2:26.93), Ruddell (1600m, eighth, 5:30.75), Maysa Reece (3200m, eighth, 12:34.33) and Orndorff (100m hurdles, eighth, 16.76).
Mountain Ridge used both quantity and quality to win the championship. The Miners had 35 entries, the most of any girls program regardless of class, took 14 athletes to states and 12 scored points.
“We kind of have this theory that if you can’t get one girl to go down to states and score 10 points, you try to find two girls that can score 10 points together in that event, or three girls that score 10 together in that event,” coach Hawkins said, referencing the 800m, 1600m and 3200m.
“That’s kind of the theory there of scoring points by volume.”
Fort Hill field standout Casey Martz was the area’s big individual winner, taking the championship in the shot put (50’ 7”) and discus (146’ 7”).
Mountain Ridge’s Zach Haberlein was a gold medalist in the 400m with a time of 48.92.
On the girls side, Fort Hill’s Jaden Emerson captured the 100m hurdles title in a school-record time of 14.81, and Sadie Hamilton won the triple jump with a distance of 35’ 5.50” — a Sentinel sophomore record.
Allegany’s Briley Linaburg, who is signed to Frostburg State, was the pole vault title-winner with a height of 11’ 4”.
Finishing as state runner-up were the Miners’ Austin Simpson (800m, 1:57.01), Fort Hill’s Chase Lamb (300m hurdles, 40.40) and 4x100m girls relay (Harmani Palmisano, Caniyah Plummer, Arriana Sanchez, Emerson), and Allegany’s Myia Miller (triple jump, 35’ 0.75”).
Fort Hill and Allegany added a pair of third-place finishes each and Mountain Ridge had one: the Campers’ Trevin Cox (long jump, 21’ 7.25”) and Rylee Bauser (discus, 109’), the Sentinels’ Easton Peters (discus, 134’ 8”) and Addison Beem (pole vault, 10’), and the Miners’ 4x800m boys relay (Chase DeWitt, David Malone, Harrison Ruddell, Simpson).
Other girls top-eight finishers included Hamilton (100m hurdles, fourth, 15.83; 300m hurdles, seventh, 49.11) and Emerson (100m, sixth, 12.72) from Fort Hill, Surae Stewart (discus, sixth, 99’ 2”; shot put, eighth, 32’ 3.50”) from Allegany, Ariana Healey (long jump, fourth, 15’ 9.75”) from Southern, and Samara Streets (high jump, fifth, 5’) from Northern.
Allegany’s 4x800m relay (Braylin Bosley, Corinna Hilderbrand, Ellena Nelson, Zoe Ditto) came in fifth, Southern’s 4x800m relay (Carla DeBerry, Margot Ludwig, Raelynn Smith-Pritt, McNeely Bosley) finished sixth, and Mountain Ridge’s 4x200m relay (Allie Knieriem, Kealana Pua’auli, Orndorff, Hughes) placed eighth.
Also placing top eight for the boys were Fort Hill’s EJ Scott (long jump, seventh, 20’ 3.50”) and Peters (shot put, eighth, 43’ 4”), and Mountain Ridge’s Haberlein (100m, fourth, 11.18) and 4x400m relay (Simpson, DeWitt, Caden Zeigler, Haberlein) that was fifth.