The Wellsville-Middletown track team will send nine athletes to the Class 1 state track championship meet at Adkins Stadium in Jefferson City.

Seniors Dylan Alsop, Jacob Mandrell, Lucas Moore, Kaleb Peak and Logan Pursifull, junior Bethany Slovensky and sophomores Hunter Bickell, Gage Marshall and Jonah Slovensky will represent the Tigers at the state event, which starts on May 19 and ends on May 20.

Mandrell and Bethany Slovensky will make their third state appearances, Bickell will compete at state for the second year in a row and Alsop, Moore, Peak, Pursifull, Marshall and Jonah Slovensky will make their state debuts.

All nine athletes earned a trip to state based on their performances from the Class 1, Sectional 1 championship meet on May 13 at New Haven. The top four finishers in each event advance to Jefferson City. W-M qualified for state in nine events.

Bethany Slovensky qualified for three events at the state meet – the 100-meter hurdles, 300-meter hurdles and long jump. She won the 100-meter hurdles in 16.30 seconds, her third straight sectional championship in that event. She also came out on top in the 300-meter hurdles in 48.07 seconds, a new school record. She placed second in the long jump in 15 feet, 2.25 inches.

Slovensky will compete in all three of her events on May 19. She will compete in the long jump at 10 a.m., the 100-meter hurdles preliminaries at 11:30 a.m. and the 300-meter hurdles preliminaries at 2:45 p.m.

Slovensky will also look to add to her state medal collection during her trip to Jefferson City. She has earned four all-state medals, two each in the last two years. Last year, she finished fifth in the 100-meter hurdles and eighth in the 300-meter hurdles. When she was a freshman, she placed third in the 100-meter hurdles and eighth in the triple jump.

All eight W-M boys will be in action on the first day of the state meet on May 19. Marshall will compete in the high jump at 9:30 a.m., Mandrell will compete in the 110-meter hurdles preliminaries at 11:50 a.m., Bickell will run the 1,600 at 1:20 p.m., the 400-meter relay team of Alsop, Moore, Peak and Jonah Slovensky will race at 1:55 p.m., Pursifull will compete in the shot put at 2 p.m. and the 1,600-meter relay team of Marshall, Alsop, Moore and Bickell will run at 5 p.m.
Pursifull, who is competing in track for the first time this spring, won the sectional title in the shot put with a throw of 45-11.25. The week before, he won the district title in the event in a season-best 46-4.

Marshall placed second in the high jump in a season-best 6-0.75. He qualified for sectionals in the event by finishing first with a 5-10 in districts.

Bickell, who competed in the 4x800 in last year’s state meet, finished third in the 1,600 in 4:56.22.

Mandrell, who missed the first part of the season due to a hamstring injury, came in fourth in the 110-meter hurdles in 18.48 seconds.

The 4x100 team of Alsop, Moore, Peak and Jonah Slovensky finished fourth in 47.97 seconds to clinch a state berth. The 4x400 squad of Marshall, Alsop, Moore and Bickell placed fourth in 3:46.66 to advance to Jefferson City.

The Tigers also competed at sectionals in three other events, but didn’t qualify for state in either of them. The 4x800 team of Marshall, Peak, Slovensky and Bickell, which won a district title the week before, placed sixth in 9:29.45. Mandrell finished seventh in the triple jump in 37.7.25. Bickell competed in the 3,200, but didn’t finish.

W-M, which won its first district title in school history on May 6, placed fifth with 47 points in the team standings at sectionals.

Bickell, Peak and Bethany Slovensky will participate in their second state event of the 2022-23 school year. They were the Tigers’ representatives at the Class 1 state cross country meet in November.