More homes are for sale in Cincinnati. So why aren't prices falling?
HIGH SCHOOL-KENTUCKY

Transfer helps solidify Simon Kenton relay teams

Marc Hardin
prepsports@enquirer.com
Track.

The Simon Kenton girls' sprint relay and 400-meter relay teams broke four- and five-year-old Raider Relays records Thursday at Ryle with the uncommon combination of three basketball players, including one making a return to the track and field team, and a transfer from the state of Washington.

It all added up to a finishing time of 1 minute and 52.30 seconds in the sprint relay and 51.66 seconds in the 400 relay for starter Amarah Nicholson, Abby Owings, Makenzie Hester and anchor runner Christina Cook.

They reset the Simon Kenton sprint relay record of 1:56.44 first established in 2010, and smashed the 400-meter mark of 52.22 set in 2009 by Campbell County.

Not bad for a unit that wouldn't exist without the addition of Nicholson, a former state qualifier since the seventh grade in two states, Washington and Alabama.

"She's been the X factor, she's so strong," Simon Kenton coach Jesse Herbst said of the junior. "The basketball players, Hester and Cookie, I've had since the sixth grade, and they're both going to run at Thomas More. Abby Owings, the basketball captain, ran a few years ago, but I got her interested again.

"They're all great athletes and good runners, but I would not be running them together on a relay team without Amarah because it would be a waste of time. I'd run them individually."

Instead, the coach is running them together and individually while trying to figure out the best configurations in the pursuit of points.

The Pioneers fell short Thursday. Ryle swept the boys' and girls' team championships for the first time in five years. The Raiders' girls totaled 99 points to beat runner-up Highlands (80), and the boys scored 88 while out-pointing runner-up Cooper (64).

The Simon Kenton relay girls have bonded so well that Nicholson considers them friends. "It's been nice," said Nicholson, whose father is an Air Force reserve recruiter. "No one knows about me."

For now.

Owings, Hester and Cook are household names at Simon Kenton. Owings led the basketball team in scoring the past two seasons. Cook has been a top scorer and rebounder, in addition to a four-year track and field state qualifier. Hester and a brother have won several varsity letters.

There were five records set at the 22-year-old relay meet.

Highlands' girls broke their own one-year-old record in the 6,400 with a time of 23:19.52, bettering the mark of 24:20.10.

Paige Dauer, Chloe Gastright, Molly Mearns and Karsen Hunter were the runners.

Highlands' Matt Gray, Will Backscheider, Ethan Shuley and John Michael Griffith set the record in the boys' distance medley with a time of 10:55.28, breaking the 10-year-old Ryle mark of 11:10.1.

Cooper's Mitchell Greenhalgh, Aaron Kelter, Jake Vandermosten and Zach Stewart broke Cincinnati St. Xavier's four-year-old mark in the boys' 6,400 by more than seven seconds with a clocking of 18:55.87.