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Mason High School’s Atrium Stadium is one of the best track and field facilities in the area, but it isn’t big enough for Western Brown’s Mack Tudor.

Wednesday’s Division I district discus throw competition had to be moved from Mason to Lakota East because Tudor, a senior who has already broken the all-time state record this season, is throwing farther than the Mason discus area can hold. Tudor won his third consecutive district title in the event with a toss of 185 feet, 5 inches.

A little while later, at Mason, Withrow senior, city record-holder and defending state shot put champion D’Monami Gardner won her fourth straight district championship with a heave of 43-6.

Tudor and Gardner head to next week’s regional meet as favorites not only to win their events at Dayton’s Welcome Stadium but at the state meet the following week at Ohio State. They agreed on one thing about their wins: There are better things to come in the next couple of weeks.

Neither winning performance was near their personal bests; Tudor threw 206-4 at the Wayne Invitational last month to best the 204-5 mark set by Akron Ellet’s Charles Moye in 1987. Gardner won the state title last season with a final put of 46-8.75.

“Right now I’m practicing my technique and all I’m thinking about the next two weeks is that 206,” said Tudor. “That’s what I plan on hitting.”

Sophomore Ellery Lassiter of Walnut Hills was second at 152-6, with junior Danny Keller of Turpin and sophomore Evan Spangler of Anderson also qualifying for Dayton.

Tudor has qualified to state three years in a row; he placed 12th as a freshman and eighth as a sophomore but fouled on all three of his preliminary throws last year and didn’t qualify to the finals.

“That’s pretty much what pushed me through the summer last year,” said Tudor. “… That has driven me the past year.”

Gardner has had her eyes and mind set on the state shot put record of 50-10 owned by Ashley Moffett of North Canton Hoover since 2005. She said she felt good in warm-ups, getting some of her puts out into the 47- and 48-foot range but it didn’t translate into the competition. She had two fouls that had good distance.

“I was mad,” said Gardner. “I’m focusing on trying to get that record.”

Sophomore Chelsea Carpenter of Walnut Hills was second, while senior teammate Jillian Hassel was third and Mason sophomore Ashley Brown fourth.

Wednesday’s competition consisted of seven final events and running preliminaries. Mason leads the boys’ meet with 26 points through three events, while the Comets tallied 48.5 points through four events to put themselves well on the way to a girls’ team championship.

The top four finishers in each event qualify for the regional meet.

The Anderson boys and Mason girls won their respective 3,200-meter relay races in blistering fashion. Anderson won the boys’ race in 7:51.07, while defending state champion Mason took the girls’ race in 9:19.55. Both times were faster than the times leading the state, according to Milesplit.com, at the start of the day.

The Anderson team of juniors Casey Gallagher and Sean Batt and seniors Kameron Powell and Nick Vogele won by nearly 6 seconds against Mason’s quartet of sophomore Ethan Valentine, juniors Paul D’Hyver de las Deses and Alex Notton and senior Michael Mumma. Vogele ran a split of 1:53.6, according to Anderson coach Andy Wolf, on the anchor leg.

Kings and Turpin also qualified.

Mason’s team of freshman Delaney McDowell, sophomore Olivia Gaus and seniors Bridget McElhenny and Monica Lake ran away from the field.

Sycamore (9:34.53) was second, with Turpin and Walnut Hills also qualifying.

In the only other boys’ final, Mason senior Josh Dooley won the long jump with a leap of 21-4.5. Sophomore Matt McDonald of Little Miami, freshman Reece Pontious of Mason and senior James Crawford of Withrow also qualified.

Sophomore Jenny Nelson cleared 10-6 to win the pole vault ahead of sophomore teammate Rachel Stein.

Sophomore Jordan Horning of Mason (5-3) won the high jump, with junior Emma Zangrando of Turpin, senior Jadie Riewoldt of Little Miami and sophomore Meredith Haller of Mason also advancing.

Mason scored in each of the first three innings, including crossing the plate six times in the third inning, to advance to its ninth consecutive Division I district softball title game with a 12-2 victory against Turpin Tuesday afternoon at Lakota West.

The game, postponed from Monday due to wet field conditions, ended in the top of the fifth because of the 10-run rule when freshman Jordan Sullivan beat a throw home to score on a fielder’s choice. It was Sullivan’s third run scored of the game.

Mason (18-10) is the No. 1 seed in the Cincinnati sectional and will face No. 2 Fairfield Friday at 5 p.m. at Lakota East. The two Greater Miami Conference rivals split their two regular season games. The winner of the rubber match will earn a trip to the regional tournament.

“Fairfield is a very good team, a GMC rival and they are hitting the ball very well,” said Mason coach Liann Muff. “That will be a tough game but we’re looking forward to it. Any time you get a chance to play a GMC rival it’s a good day.”

Turpin got off to a 1-0 lead in the first inning. Junior second baseman Kelci Martin singled with one out and later scored on a throwing error. Two of the three hits Turpin got off of Mason senior pitcher Sarah Browning came in the first inning.

The Comets answered with three runs in the bottom of the inning off of Turpin sophomore Beth Persicano. Sullivan led off with an infield hit, went to second base on a sacrifice bunt by junior leftfielder Macy Hubbard and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by senior catcher Margo Hutchison. Browning later delivered a two-run double to give Mason the lead for good.

Mason added two more runs in the second inning before their six-run third inning. All of the runs were driven in on three consecutive two-run, two-out hits; Hubbard singled in the first two runs, senior Jillian Richardson doubled in the next two and then scored when Hutchinson hit her 10th home run of the season.

“We started off slow but when we got up to the plate we found we could hit (Persicano) and we kept building from there,” said Browning.

Browning retired the final eight batters to improve to 13-8 on the season.

Turpin, the No. 7 seed, ends its season at 18-4. It is the fourth time in the last five seasons the Spartans have won at least 17 games.

The Spartans didn’t help themselves by committing three errors. They had committed just 27 errors in their 21 previous games.

“We didn’t lose this one, we got beat by clearly the better team,” said Turpin coach Tom McGill. “I feel bad for the kids. That’s not the way you want your seniors to go out. It’s a young group but three seniors who are very clearly the leaders and we’ll miss them a lot. They’ve meant a lot to the program.”

MASON 12, TURPIN 2 (5 Innings)

WP – Browning (13-8); LP – Persicano (8-3). Hitting leaders: M – Sullivan 2-4; Hubbard 2 RBI; Richardson 2B, 2 RBI; Hutchison 2B, 3 RBI; Browning 2B, 2 RBI; Hayner 3B. Records: Turpin 18-4, Mason 18-10.

Mason seniors Miguel Cepeda and Luke Tsai are great individual tennis players. But that did not assure them of being successful as doubles partners. Last year the Comets’ duo mostly rode their individual talents to a Division I state runner-up finish. But after a full year of training together and building a relationship off the court, Cepeda and Tsai say they’re better positioned this year to capture a Division I state championship.

Mason's Miguel Cepeda celebrates scoring a point in the OHSAA division I doubles tennis tournament Saturday, May 28, 2011, in Hilliard, Ohio. (Jay LaPrete/For the Enquirer)

“We play at the same club together, we carpool together, practice together,” Cepeda said. “Last year was our first year playing doubles together. We’re more experienced, stronger. Instead of just wanting to get to state, our goal this year is to win it.”

In the semifinals of Saturday’s D-I sectional tournament, Cepeda and Tsai were challenged by Sycamore’s Yuri Karev and Nakul Narendran but emerged with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-2 victory.

“Our games complement each other,” Tsai said. “Miguel puts away shots. I can put him in good position. That’s our best attack.”

In the sectional final, Cepeda and Tsai faced their Mason teammates John Mostowy and Colin Heim, who defeated Sycamore’s Dylan Stern and Nikhil Gandhi in the semis. Cepeda and Tsai emerged with a 6-3, 6-0 victory.

The individual star at Saturday’s sectional tournament was Lakota East senior Zach Mueck, a Xavier commit who’s hoping to overcome tendonitis in his right elbow and close out his career with a state singles title. Mueck said the elbow occasionally tightens up during competition, but that it’s nothing he can’t overcome.

On Saturday Mueck overcame some unforced errors in the first set to edge Mason’s Alexander Lebedev 7-6, 6-3 in the semifinals. “I kept double-faulting,” said Mueck, who repeatedly voiced his frustration to himself during the match. “Just a lack of effort and concentration on my part.”

In the sectional final, Mueck, a two-time state runner-up who posted his 100th career victory at the Coaches Classic Tournament on April 21, rolled to a 6-2, 6-1 win over Mason’s Jeremy Schneider.

In the D-II sectional singles final at Mason, Bishop Fenwick’s David Leesman won the title by defeating Waynesville’s David Jeffries 3-0 after Jeffries retired during the first set.

New Richmond’s doubles team of Zach Manning and Matt Rydzewski defeated Felicity-Franklin’s Trevor Shouse and Jacob Fry in the semifinals before dropping a 6-1, 6-0 decision to Waynesville’s Stephen Jeffries and Mitch Chamberlain in the finals.

Mason senior Kaeleigh Warfield probably won’t be continuing her hurdle career when she leaves for college next fall.

She’ll be too busy jumping out of airplanes, indulging her interest in martial arts – and preparing to serve her country.

Warfield, who describes herself as “pretty averagely good” in her events, will enroll at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where she plans to major in physics and minor in Chinese while competing on the academy’s skydiving and Jiu-Jitsu teams.

“I’m pretty sure I’ll get on the skydiving team,” said Warfield, whose first of her even dozen jumps was a 16th birthday present to herself. “I always wanted to fly. The Jiu-Jitsu team will be a little more competitive.”

Mason's William Chanatry wins the first of four prelims in the 100-meter dash. The Enquirer/Joseph Fuqua II

Warfield outlined her plans during the second of three rain delays at Friday’s Rod Russell Mason Invitational at Atrium Field at Dwire Stadium. She and her classmates from the Comet boys and girls teams were honored before the finals, those ceremonies finishing just before a thunderstorm formed and produced lightning that delayed the meet.

The meet was delayed by lightning for a third time at 9:17 p.m. and then cancelled. Ohio High School Athletic Association rules mandate events be stopped for 30 minutes from the last lightning sighting.

The event serves as a final tuneup before next week’s league meets and the following week’s district action. Mason’s “A” team was leading the girls meet through seven events. Huber Heights Wayne was leading the boys standings through six events.

There is no makeup date.

Warfield always has been motivated and driven, said her mother, Jennifer.

“She was born holding her head up,” she said. “She went from crawling to walking in two weeks. She’s always been that way.”

Kaeleigh Warfield, 17, has been interested in the military for years, she said. She recently learned it might be somewhat hereditary after seeing photos kept by her grandmother, Sandy Bloemer.

“There were pictures of guys in uniform going back generations,” she said.

She also heard from her uncle, California resident Cash Murphy, a former Navy Seal who tried to steer her toward the Navy, but after attending summer seminars at both West Point and the Naval Academy at Annapolis, she chose the Army.

“I got into it and got an idea of what the life was like and really liked it,” she said.

Kaeleigh Warfield, who is carrying a 4.8 weighted grade-point average and earned her black belt in Tae Kwan Do a year ago, decided to major in physics because she knew she wanted to focus on a math-oriented subject that would leave her with options such as medicine. She’s been studying Chinese for about a year, she added.

“I’m really enjoying it,” she said.