Warrior Boys Track & Field Wins OHSAA DI State Championship
Jun 16, 2025|Track
Share:
At the start of the outdoor track season, longtime Wayne High School track coach Michael Fernandez felt his boys could win a state championship this spring.
Early on Saturday at the state meet at Jesse Owens Stadium, he was a little unsure, but that did not last long.
“It didn’t start out really great for us because our long jumper didn’t make the finals, and we were kind of counting on that, but I thought we could score 40, maybe 50 points, and usually that’s enough,” Fernandez said.
“We were worried about Butler, Hoover and Beechcroft, but then after the hurdles and the 100 we’re at 16 points right away and I said, ‘All right, they’re clicking on all cylinders.’ And you can just tell. The kids, I don’t have to say anything to ‘em. The hardest job was yesterday, getting everybody to the finals today, and then they showed up and they showed out.”
Sophomore Keng Martin finished fifth in the 110 hurdles then classmate Jamier Averette-Brown won the 100-meter dash and anchored victories in the 4x100 and 4x200 (both with Martin, Key’Shawn Garrett and Semarion Sroufe) teams to get the Warriors out to a huge lead in the team competition.
Averette-Brown and Garrett added second- and third-place fin
ishes in the 200 for another 14 points.
They ended up with 60 points, easily beating Lexington (39) and Butler (36) to claim the third state track title in school history.
Fernandez has been part of all of them, first as an assistant in 1995 then as the head coach in 2000.
“I thought every five years, this is pretty easy, right? And then we had to wait 25 more years for the boys to it,” he said, noting the Wayne girls won the state title last year while the boys finished in second place by one point. “I’m lucky. I really am lucky to be able to enjoy the first of everything and to see what they did. It’s hard to explain. It’s really neat. I’m a Wayne grad, too. I ran track here. I teach there, so to be able to do this and to be able to share it with these kids, it’s an amazing feeling.”
Among the firsts was a sweep of the 100-meters. Before Averette-Brown took home the boys title, Wayne senior Te’aira Branham-Patrick won the girls event.
“I never think about that,” Fernandez said. “We were just happy to have one, but to get them go, ‘Boom, boom,’ it was such a surreal moment.”
“I never think about that,” Fernandez said. “We were just happy to have one, but to get them go, ‘Boom, boom,’ it was such a surreal moment.”