The top four in each event advanced to the regional Wednesday and Friday at Pickerington North.

Last Tuesday, the Cougars qualified two relays from preliminaries to the finals last Saturday. They were Dillon Barclay, Jose Rodriguez, David Williams and Chris Butcher in the 400-meter relay (45.96 seconds) and 800 relay (1:36.13).

"We had some kids run season-bests, and anytime you can run a season-best in a league or district track meet it means you did some things rights as a coach and they peaked at the right time," coach Tim Eckard said.

The qualifying for field events was held last Thursday.

The Cougars competed in the OCC-Central Division meet May 14 and 16 at Upper Arlington. The boys team finished eighth (15 points) behind first-place Hilliard Darby (172) as Randy Hall was third in the shot put (45 feet, 7 inches).

The girls team was eighth (16) behind champion Hilliard Davidson (166). Nicole Reichart was fifth in the 1,600 (5:28.06) and Allison Thomas was fifth in the high jump (4-10).

•The boys tennis team gained valuable experience and enjoyed some success as it finished 7-12 overall.

"It was an up-and-down season," coach Dan Witteman said. "We had some matches where I thought we competed very well and then we had some matches where I didn't think we played as well. All in all, I keep it in perspective. We have a very difficult schedule in the league."

Westland finished seventh (11) in the OCC-Central tournament May 9 behind first-place UA (73) and ahead of eighth-place Central Crossing (7). The Comets defeated Westland during the regular season 3-2 on May 5.

The Cougars split their final two matches, defeating Briggs 5-0 last Monday and losing to Grove City 4-1 last Tuesday.

Junior David Griffith was the team's top player. He fell just short of a qualifying spot in the Division I district tournament after winning two matches at sectional May 22-23 at Darby.

"I could have played a little bit better," Griffith said of his season. "Toward the end of the season I started to figure a few problems out. I should come back next year good to go."

"David has potential," Witteman said. "He has competed against some awfully good players. He wants to get better and he's willing to now to put in even more time to improve the level of his game. I think David has aspirations of maybe playing small-college tennis, which I told him I thought he could do in another year."

Singles players Allan Hinch and Andy Van advanced to the second round at sectional, as did the doubles team of Scott Haslam and Jesse Kraft.

Westland will lose seniors Hinch and Eleazar Collins.

Griffith is expected to lead the team again next year. Also expected back are juniors Kraft, Colin McCarty and Jacob Neff and sophomores Troy Fleischman, Haslam, Tyler Thomas and Van.

"I felt that everybody got better," Griffith said. "Some of our guys when they first came out for the team couldn't even hit the ball and now they're out there hitting and now it's a pretty good team."

"It took awhile to put the pieces together, but I think I figured it out," Witteman said. "We made a lot of progress."

•The baseball team closed its season by losing at OCC-Central rival Central Crossing 6-5 last Tuesday.

The Comets scored twice in the bottom of the seventh inning. Jose Reyes was tagged with the loss in relief of Lucas Pencek. The Cougars led 4-2 in the fourth and 5-4 in the seventh before Central Crossing staged a pair of comebacks.

Westland finished 7-17 overall and 0-14 in the league.

•The softball team beat Central Crossing 3-2 on May 15 to finish 12-11 overall and 7-7 in the OCC-Central.

The Cougars scored twice in the top of the seventh for the comeback win. Brandi Rees earned the decision.