The Best of the West Track Invitational has been going strong for decades, becoming a community staple and one of the bigger events hosted at Oak Hills. This year, the meet will fall on May 8th, and to get ready for that, here’s a rundown on the history and personal highlights of the meet.

Meet Origins

The meet premiered in 1973 as a boys only meet, with Colerain, West High, Elder, LaSalle, and Oak Hills in attendance. The meet was hosted at the Western Hills cinder block track and was sponsored by the local newspaper, The Western

 Hills Publishing Company. The Highlanders were victorious in the opening year of the meet, with future Oak Hills Hall of Fame inductee Jim Schnur in competition. Schnur won the 440 yd dash (older meets didn’t run the 400 at the time) with a 49.2, and would go on that season to be the Highlanders first ever individual state champion. Mike Boeing, former track coach at Elder and a huge help in gathering information about Best of the West, competed in the ‘73 meet. The girls team had their first Best of the West Meet in 1976, and they won in their premiere year as well. For a couple years after that, the meet had been hosted at Colerain High School, and then moved to Oak Hills where we would alternate host duties with Elder. By 1998 Oak Hills had completely taken the reins of the meet, and has been going strong ever since. 

One of a Kind

Best of the West is much more than just a normal track meet. It’s become known for some of its less traditional events. 

Former longtime Highlander Coach Dean remarked, “I know two of the highlights have always been the shuttle hurdle relays and the weight person relay…it’s always a fan favorite.” The weight person relay is really just a 4×100, but the twist is that the relay is composed of the shot and discus throwers. It’s done near the very end of the meet, sometimes under the lights. It’s a fun way to get the shot put and discus athletes to compete in front of everyone, and the atmosphere is usually electric.

The shuttle hurdle relay, on the other hand, is one of the first events of the meet. It’s a bit complex of a set-up, where a team will send two of their hurdlers to one lane, and the other two in the adjacent lane, starting on the opposite side of the track. The women run 100m legs while the men 110m legs each. For example, the starter for the relay is at the finish in lane one, and sprints down to the 100/110m mark, where the second hurdler is in lane two, in their blocks. They have someone behind them telling them individually when to go, so timing up can be tricky. They then sprint down to the finish where hurdler three is in the blocks back in lane one. They then sprint down to the 100/110m mark, where the anchor for the relay is waiting in lane two. They sprint down to the finish, where the race is then complete.

Like I said, the race is pretty complex, and only four relays can compete at a time due to the fact that each team needs two lanes. The only other meet that Oak Hills attends that has a shuttle hurdle relay is the CHCA Coaches Classics meet earlier in the season, and the race itself isn’t even an official OHSAA Track and Field event. What also makes the Best of the West unique is the amount of teams that have attended over the years. A list of all the schools that at some point competed in the Best of the West include East Central, Seton, Elder, Mother of Mercy, Oak Hills, Mount Healthy, Wyoming, Ross, Taylor, Harrison, Western Hills, Badin, DePaul Cristo Rey, Oyler, LaSalle, Mercy McAuley, Colerain, Reading, Purcell Martin, St. Ursula, East Central, and Cincinnati College Prep Academy. 

Records

Over the history of the meet, the Highlanders have accumulated a very respectable amount of meet records, some of which also double as school records, which given courtesy of Boeing include:

• James Schmidt with a 1:53.61 in the 800 (2021)
• Cody Lacewell with a 4:24.22 in the 1600 (2011)
• Izak Velaquez with a 9:25.33 in the 3200 (2010)
• Ryan Linenkugel, Matthew Bertram, Kosi Mkwanazi, and Benjamin Klaserner with a 1:01.39 in the Shuttle Hurdle Relay (4×110) just last year (2024)
• Steigerwald in a three-way tie with a 6’6” jump (2008)
• 4×100 Throwers Relay with a 48.7 (1982)
• Sydney Kilgore with a 2:16.56 in the 800 (2016)
• Brooklyne Ridder with a 5:09.20 in the 1600 (2009)
• The Girls 4×800 Relay(runners unknown) with a 9:33.58 (2009)
• Megan Kappen with a 14.69 in the 100 Hurdles (2016)

Victory Years

The girls team has their name all over the list of meet winners by year, having won the meet in ‘76, ‘77, ‘99, ‘01, ‘02, ‘03, ‘04, ‘05, ‘06, ‘16, and most recently just two years ago in ‘23 winning with 153 points for a five point win over Seton, where it all came down to the 4×4 team, which got first place while Seton’s relay came in third (Milesplit). The boys team has had their wins as well, just maybe not as much as the girls. Most of the years, Elder has won the meet, at one point winning for 27 years straight, from 1989-2016. The years that Oak Hills boys have won are ‘73, ‘74, ‘17, (where according to Coach Continenza, Coach Dean was in tears after the victory drought had ended) and ‘24, just last year,  the team that would go on to win districts, won the Best of the West, putting up 164 points compared to a second place Elder’s 143 (Milesplit). The boys team is strong again this year, so there is a pretty good chance that they could go back-to-back on victories, something they haven’t done in almost 50 years. 

Like I mentioned earlier, the meet is most definitely one of a kind, and mixed with its electric environment it makes for an incredible experience at Oak Hills that’s praised all across the West Side of Cincinnati. Best of luck to all the athletes competing, Roll Highlanders.