Gold rush
BUTLER TWP — Ori Rinaman made the most of his final appearance at the Butler Track and Field Invitational.
Mars' senior bested the field in both hurdle events, taking the 110-meter event in 14.78 seconds and the 300 in 38.52.
The effort earned for him Boys Track MVP honors.
Even with a pair of first-place medals, Rinaman hopes his best races are in front of him.
“My technique was a little off in the 110,” he said of defending his title from last year. “I was shaky at the beginning of the race. It's just something I will have to work on in practice.”
His finish in the 300 hurdles was stronger, according to Planets' coach Larry Young. Rinaman placed second here last year in that event with a time of 39.8.
“When it comes to the 300, I think the sky is the limit for him,” said Young. “His time today was about a second better than his best time from last year. That's a significant improvement considering we are just getting into the meat of the season and the weather early in the spring was not good.”
But you won't catch Rinaman using that as an excuse.
“We're all glad that it's nicer outside,” he said, “but our mentality at Mars is that you're going to have to practice and compete in bad weather. I don't think the weather has affected me much. I just want to get to states and see what happens there.”Butler's Robert Burdine was a member of the Golden Tornado's 4x100 relay team that placed second here last year behind Fox Chapel. Now a senior, he was satisfied to be standing on the top of the awards stand this time around.Burdine teamed with Nicolai Peterson, Luke Kernic and Nathan Kibbie to finish the event in 43.89, or .34 seconds ahead of second-place Moon.“It feels great to win this year, we've put a lot of hard work in,” he said. “For me and (Peterson), we're both seniors and we wanted to be at our best today.”The Tornado's victory is another step on a path that Burdine and his teammates hope leads to bigger and better things.“We started the year off at 45 (seconds),” he added. “We had to get used to making the handoffs to each other. Today, we got down to 43.89, so we are right on point with it being midway through the season. The goal is always to get to states.”Also taking a step forward was Seneca Valley's Isabelle Biase. In both place and time, she improved over her performance from last spring.
She placed seventh here last year in the 800 run with a time of 2:25.53. This time, she left with a first-place medal around her neck following an effort of 2:19.96.Biase was the lone Butler County area girl to win a track event Friday.“I've been training hard and was just focusing on my time coming in,” Biase said. “I wanted a 2:20 today. This was the first time all season that I ran all-out in the 800.”The Girls Track MVP award went to Vincentian Academy's Marianne Abdalah, who won the 1,600 and 3,200 run, setting a new meet record in the latter.
