Slippery Rock hosting 4th Butler County Classic

April 04, 2024 Last Updated: April 03, 2024 10:23 PM Sports

Seneca Valley’s Jonathan Price lands in the triple Jump as he placed first in the event and set a meet record during the 2023 Butler County Classic at Freeport High School. This year’s County Classic is slated for Saturday at Slippery Rock High School. Justin Guido/ Butler Eagle 04/06/23

SLIPPERY ROCK — The Butler County Classic has proven to serve two purposes.

It brings all of the Butler County high school track and field programs together for a day. It also provides a measuring stick for teams and athletes to see where they’re at this early in the season.

The fourth annual event takes place at 11 a.m. Saturday at Slippery Rock High School.

“This is only the second major meet we’ve hosted since putting our new track in 10 years ago,” Slippery Rock track and field coach Tom Meling said. “We’re excited about this.”

Slippery Rock hosted the Mercer County meet in 2015, Its new track was installed in 2014.

Butler hosted the first County Classic in 2021. Seneca Valley hosted the meet in 2022 and Freeport hosted it last year.

“We’re trying to move the event around the county as much as we can,” Butler coach Mike Seybert said. “We’re trying to get Karns City to host it next year.”

Participating schools on Saturday will be Butler, Seneca Valley, Freeport, Knoch, Karns City, Moniteau, North Catholic, Grove City and host Slippery Rock. Mars is not taking part in the meet this year.

Each school may enter up to four individuals per event, with only one foursome per relay event. Team scores are not kept.

The top three placers in each event receive Butler County Classic T-shirts.

“Our kids love those shirts,” Meling said. “They wear them around all the time. There’s definitely a bit of pride in earning one of those things.

“We’ve got kids who want to try different events and this is the perfect meet to have them do that. It’s great competition and we’ll see how they stack up, then decide whether to keep them in that event or pursue something else.

“We scrimmage Seneca Valley every year, so we see them. We come to the Butler Invite, so we see them. Karns City, Knoch, Moniteau ... These are schools we don’t normally run against and it will be fun being on the same track with them at our place,” Meling added.

Butler coach John Williams pointed out that nine County Classic records — six girls, three boys — fell at last year’s event. He expects to see a few more records fall on Saturday.

“Obviously, weather plays a factor there,” Williams said. “But the athletes in the county keep getting better, so the competition here keeps getting better.

“Grove City is taking part in this meet and they had a jumper win at the indoor state meet. That program has plenty of great athletes.”

Butler standout distance runner Drew Griffith will not be at the meet. He will be in the state of California competing in the Arcadia Invitational against the top high school distance runners in the country.

“We’ll be looking to spread a lot of our kids around at this (County Classic), get as many different kids on the track as we can,” Sybert said. “Obviously, you try to win every event you can, but I enjoy seeing some of the top athletes from other schools in the county.

“This meet is a special thing and it keeps gaining steam each year.”

BUTLER COUNTY CLASSIC RECORDS

Boys

100-Tyler Yurich (Seneca Valley) 10.88

200-Guinness Brown (Butler) 21.43

400-Guinness Brown (Butler) 48.60

800-Skyler Vavro (Butler) 1:57.63

1,600-CJ Singleton (Butler) 4:11.09

3,200-Noah Petersen (Seneca Valley) 9:37.27

110 hurdles-Levi Prementine (Slippery Rock) 14.97

300 hurdles-Aiden Kutchma (Seneca Valley) 39.14

4x100 relay-Butler 43.30