The state championship meet took place in Columbus at the Ohio State University’s Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium.
On a rainy and chilly day on Friday, June 1, Stutz was able to qualify for the Division III 100-meter hurdles finals with a preliminary time of 16.41. The time was good enough for ninth place out of the 16 state qualifiers.
Coming back the next morning, Stutz finished in ninth place in the state with a time of 17.04, about 1.5 seconds behind the state champion, Ivy Horn of Waynesfield-Goshen.
Stutz won the regional meet a week earlier at Troy High School with a time of 15.68 seconds.
Also in Division III, Williamsburg’s Clayton Scheidler qualified for the state meet in the 100-meter dash. The senior had been hampered by a strained quad muscle all season and failed to qualify for the finals of the event.
Scheidler ran his preliminary heat in a time of 11.91 seconds, which placed him 15th overall.
In Division II, district champion Lauren Stacy of Bethel-Tate competed in both the shot put and the discus.
Stacy, a junior, won the regional championship at New Richmond a week prior in the discus and finished second in the shot put to earn her way to Columbus. However, she was unable to crack the top-12 in either event at the state meet.
In the discus, Stacy finished 14th with a long toss of 102-feet-7 inches, more than 20 feet shorter than her 124-foot throw at the regional meet.
In the shot put, Stacy topped out at 38-feet-3.75 inches, just under a foot shy of her regional long.
The area’s final state qualifier came from New Richmond. Hannah Hall, a sophomore, finished in a tie for 14th place in the high jump with a top height of 4-feet-10 inches.
Hall finished in third place at the regional meet with a high jump of 5-feet-1 inch.
The silver lining for Clermont County track hopefuls is that three of the four – Stutz, Stacy and Hall – will all be back next year to attempt to improve upon their finishes at the 2012 state championship meet.