Western’s men’s track and field team can start making plans for both the MHSAA State Finals and the MITCA Team State Championship.

    On Thursday MITCA, the Michigan Interscholastic Track Coaches Association, posted its early-season power rankings, with “Parma-Western”, as the school is referred to outside the Jackson area, ranked second. This means Western will be invited again to the MITCA Team State Championship, which will be held at Berrien Springs on May 23.

    On Friday the Panthers won the Ralph Rice Invitational and also qualified athletes in four events for the MHSAA State Finals. As an MHSAA-designated Early Qualifier meet, any performance meeting the EQ standard would qualify that individual or relay for the State Finals.

    The Panthers’ 4x200m relay team of Michael Brant, Jackson Barnes, William Melton, and Jackson Jones won the race and qualified with a time of 1:30.08. EQ standards for each division are determined by the previous three-years’ average 6th-place State Finals finish. This year’s Division 2 EQ standard for the 4x200m is 1:30.5.

    Brennan Vainner, who also won this year’s indoor state championship in the shot put, threw 56’-4.5” and easily met the EQ standard of 51’-0”.

    Fellow indoor state champion Edison Lopeman lowered the school record again and bested the EQ by nearly nine seconds in the 3200m run. Lopeman finished second behind Marshall’s Jack Bidwell, and the two are now ranked one and two in the event across all divisions.

    The 4x400m relay team of Jones, Seth Good, Brant, and Ryan Good rounded out the evening by running 3:26.79, besting the EQ of 3:28.00.

     Other stand out performances that led to Western’s win in the 14-team invitational included AJ Scutt’s 148’-7” throw in the discus, which placed first in front of Vainner’s 139’-9”. Freshman Morgan Cameron took second in the shot put with a throw of 46’-8.5”. Titan Parker won the 300m hurdles in 41.04, and joined with Brant, Barnes, and Jones for the win in the 4x100m relay in 43.96. Adam Carlson cleared a personal best 12’-3” in the pole vault and finished in third place based on misses. Seth Good finished second in the 800m run with a season best time of 2:02.67 and Jones and Brant took first and second in the 200m dash.

  More results can be found HERE on Athletic.net. A chart with all of the various MHSAA post-season qualifying standards can be found HERE.

  Next Tuesday, April 22, Western travels to Hastings for an Interstate-8 conference dual meet, and will be in Mason for the Bulldog Invitational on Friday, April 25.