By CODY NESPOR

Sports Writer

CHARLESTON — Several area runners positioned themselves nicely to compete for medals during the first day of the WVSSAC State Track Meet Wednesday.

On the first day of Class AA competition, athletes from Weir and Oak Glen placed highly in several preliminary races to advance to today’s finals.

OG’s Kamela Ward had the most eventful day out of the local competitors. Ward qualified for the finals in the 100 and 200.

She had the third-fastest time in the preliminaries in the 100 (12.89) and second-fastest in the 200 preliminaries (26.30), positioning herself well to potentially win some hardware later today.

Ward would have secured a fourth-place finish in the 400 Wednesday, but she was disqualified from the leaderboard for running outside of her lane.

Her time of 1:01.68 would have been the fourth-best in the event.

Weir’s Elena Mastrantoni also qualified in the 200 preliminaries with a time of 27.82, good for seventh place.

On the boys’ side, Oak Glen’s Matthew Greenlief won a silver medal in the 400 with a time of 51.73, less than a second behind Point Pleasant’s Jonathan Griffin (51.16) for first place.

Teammate Isiah Franklin grabbed a third-place finish in the 200 preliminaries (23.68), qualifying for the finals today.

For the Red Riders, Devan Colson is moving on in two events, the 100 and 200. His seventh-place finish in the 100 (11.46) and sixth-place finish in the 200 (23.19) will have him competing in both finals during today’s action.

Winfield sits atop both team standings after the first session Wednesday, with the boys leading Point Pleasant 38 to 29 and the girls up on Point Pleasant 38 to 20.

Class AA competition will conclude after the first two sessions today and Class AAA events will start in the evening session.