On May 23 and 24, the State High Boys Track and Field Team traveled to Shippensburg University and won the PIAA State Championship in dominant fashion. After winning the cross country state title in the fall, senior Isaac Oppermann promised two more championships in 2025. While the team fell just three points short in the indoor season, the Little Lions came through and closed a prolific 2024-25 school year with their fourth outdoor track state title since 2019.
Much like at the cross country state meet, the girls track team did not match the boys’ accomplishments, but exceeded expectations with a strong showing. Led by senior Sanai Abdullah’s two individual field medals, the team took ninth in the state.
The girls team focused on celebrating a successful end to a grueling season, and the top-10 finish just came naturally.
“The best part of the weekend was probably being with my teammates and getting to be with everybody and celebrate, because that doesn’t happen all the time,” junior Josie Younkin, who placed 14th in the high jump, said.
The Friday afternoon field events put both the boys and girls teams on the board. Senior Adam Bell closed his high school career with a gold medal in the pole vault, and Abdullah earned her first medal of the weekend, taking third in the triple jump.
The boys carried that momentum into Saturday morning, when Oppermann set a school record of 9:04.13 in the two mile and captured a bronze medal.
Florida commit Jesse Myers then took fourth in the 100 and later blazed through the 200, capturing the gold medal with a time of 21.05. Myers and his fellow senior standout Nathan Haas accounted for a combined 30 of the Little Lions’ 53 total points, outscoring the runner-up Palmyra’s 28 all by themselves.
Haas credited the team’s family atmosphere and leadership in the victory.
“It’s been awesome, I feel like not even just player to player, but the coaches’ relationship with the kids,” Haas said. “Me and [Head Coach] Artie [Gilkes], like everybody, we’re all just like a family, it’s not like the coach is the coach, it’s like he’s another guy on the team. We’re all just like a tight-knit little family, and I think that’s why we succeed.”
Haas, Myers, Bell, Oppermann, and Abdullah are part of a historic senior class, and one that Gilkes is sorry to see go.
“You can’t just replace Jesse [Myers], Issac [Oppermann], Haas, Adam [Bell], all that whole senior class, [Owen] Coughlin, all of them. I didn’t really sort of appreciate how big our senior class was until they posed for their senior class picture, and I was like, dang, we’re losing a lot of studs,” Gilkes said.
While seniors carried the load, the Little Lions also got contributions from junior Landon Bassett, the sixth place finisher in the long jump, and the fifth-place 4×800 relay team containing sophomores Luke Bradbury and Kyle Fritzsche.
Sophomore Theo Oppermann anchors a strong group of returners.
“I think there’s a lot of guys that want it, very much still want it, and I think it’s a lot of momentum, especially for the distance squad going into cross country,” Theo Oppermann said. “A lot of us feel we underperformed compared to what we did at districts, and there’s a lot that we can improve on, so that’s what we’re gonna be harping on for the cross country [season] and obviously next track season.”
On the girls’ side, junior Lydia Tate and senior Alyssa Lipski rounded out the scoring by taking fifth and eighth in the discus, respectively.
The dominant weekend was packed with tears of both sadness and joy, as the Little Lions said goodbye to a legendary senior class with a victory that every team member will remember forever.
“It was amazing, especially after indoor, losing and getting second by three points, to be able to not just win but dominate in the win, it felt fantastic,” Theo Oppermann said. “The ride home was definitely, definitely sweet.”
