Kenedi Bradley wins 100 and 200 regional titles, matches one of her school records, and is joined on two state-bound relays by Lilly Duracz, Allie Anderson and Ava Rajski in one, Gretta McCrovitz, Aubrey Bamber and Daisha Lewis in the other

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The best basketball player and fastest runner of any girl in her high school the moment she showed up for freshman orientation in August of 2022, she never stopped improving throughout her three years on the hardwood and four on the track.
Kenedi Bradley knew how to say hello and is proving she is even better at saying goodbye.
Bradley gave everyone in attendance at the Portage track and field regional Tuesday night something remarkable by which to remember her.
Doing as much in one night to lift her team as at any point in one of the most exceptional athletic careers in the history of Chesterton, Bradley qualified for the state meet in four events, the maximum allowed. She won two individual events, matched her school record in one, and is bringing along three friends in each of the two third-place relays she anchored.
The evening, and for that matter, her entire career, was a testament to a great athlete’s talent, drive, conditioning, and willingness, no, make that eagerness, to follow the instruction of a more experienced voice.
Now she’s down to her final performance for Chesterton: the state track and field meet at Indianapolis North Central on June 5.
After a strong sectional meet, Bradley set four goals for the regional: 1. Run faster than 12 seconds in the 100 meters; 2. Break 25 seconds in the 200 meters; 3. Help the 4X100 relay make it to state; 4. Do the same for the 4X400 relay, an event new to her this season.
To the surprise of no one who has watched the friendly senior who masks her intensity with a smile compete for four years, she went 4 for 4.
Bradley matched her school record in the 100, set in the same meet on the same track last season, with an 11.71, despite having less than her best start. She ran a 24.82 in the 200, not that far off her school record of 24.56. When she came around the final corner in the 200, it was as if she heard a loud voice in her head scream, “Go!” and she instantly blasted out of the Batcave, wheels squealing, flames flying.
Kenedi also anchored both relays to third-place finishes.
“It was a pretty good day,” said Bradley, ever mindful of not sounding cocky. “I got my goals, so I’ll say it’s a win.”
By the time Bradley stepped onto the track for the 4X100, she already had run preliminaries and finals in the 100 and the 200.
She showed no signs of wear. In her fifth run of the night, she took the baton back in the pack and bolted to third place in perhaps her most remarkable performance of a night packed with them. When she needs to, the girl accelerates like Danica Patrick, minus the race car. The Trojans finished behind only Merrillville and Valparaiso to earn one of the three automatic qualifying spots to state. The time of 48.11 was faster than any 4X100 relay run by Chesterton before 2025, when Kenedi and friends broke the school record three times. Bradley is the only one back from that foursome.
The Trojans run, in order, a freshman (Lilly Duracz), sophomore (Allie Anderson), junior (Ava Rajski) and a senior.
Addison Pack was an important part of that relay a year ago as a freshman and would have made the team’s time faster this year, but she was sidelined all season with a foot injury. She hasn’t had a ton about which to smile this spring, but she was beaming Tuesday night when she shared a common sentiment: “I love watching Kenedi run!”
Coach Lindsi Moskalick brings high intensity to meets, darting about to offer encouragement and pointers at close range to field athletes and runners alike, and on this night she couldn’t stop breaking into smiles. Moskalick was in the presence of greatness and nobody knew that better than she did. And she loved every minute of it. After Bradley’s final run, the anchor leg of the 4X400 relay that took third place, the teacher and the pupil shared a long embrace and the teacher the athletes refer to as “Coach M” had no complaints about walking away from it with one side of her face drenched with the sweat of a relentless competitor.
In the 4X4, seniors Gretta McCrovitz and Aubrey Bamber ran the first two legs. Running the race of her life, sophomore Daisha Lewis took the Trojans from fifth to third, which was the best place they could hope for given the big gap from second.
“I knew she wasn’t going to give up that place,” Lewis said. “I was totally confident in that. … I wish I was like her. She can do everything, bro.”
But what if the cumulative effect of all the fast sprints caught up with her doing her lap around the track in her first season of running the 400? What if her legs finally turned to jello, as in every runner’s nightmares?
Not a chance.
Bradley knew that her conditioning, scripted by Moskalick, pushing when needed, pulling back with the long-range plan in mind, then pushing again, would not permit that to happen.
Today will be what Bradley called, “a stretch and recovery day.”
“Then Coach M’s going to hit us with something on Thursday,” she said. “I’ll be ready for it. She’s prepared me all season, so I know I’ll be ready for whatever she gives us.”
As a junior, Bradley placed second at state in the 100 meters and fifth in the 200. She said her individual goal is to make top five again in both individual events and when asked which race she has a better chance of winning, she didn’t hesitate.
“I feel like my 200 this year is my best event,” she said.
Although it didn’t count as a school record because she and teammates weren’t competing for the high school because the season was over, she ran a 24.37 in the 200 at a national meet in Philadelphia. She doesn’t stress over the stopwatch, just trusts that Moskalick will prepare her to go as low as she can go.
“Coach M knows what I can handle,” Bradley said of the workouts. “She hits me with times she knows I can hit so that I can be faster at the meets.”
Bradley was the most remarkable of Trojans on a beautiful night for sprinting but far from the only one who gave a peak performance. Up and down the lineup, in the field events and races, athletes were at their best.
Sophomore pole vaulter Claire Thomas, the Chesterton sectional runner-up, rocketed her way through her personal best by a whopping 9 inches, clearing 10-3 and placed fourth, 3 inches and one spot outside an automatic qualifying position.
Thomas started at 8-6 and didn’t have a single scratch until missing all three tries at 10-6.
In flying so high, Thomas supplied another example of what heights can be reached when a young athlete puts full trust in a veteran coach, in this case Jim Raffin.
Anderson, a sophomore in her first season of track, ran a 25.61 to beat her seed and place fifth.
The 4x800 relay team of freshman Evie Fortney and sophomores Hannah Haring, Paige Clancy and Natalie Williams ran a season-best 9:40.41 for fifth place in an unusually fast event in the region this season.
Harper Russell placed seventh in the 100 hurdles with a 16.00.
Sectional runner-up Alina Micchia capped her big junior season by adding more than 4 feet to her best mark and breaking the 100-feet milestone with a discus throw of 102-00 that landed her eighth.
Fortney placed eighth in the 1600 meters with a 5:21.12.
McCrovitz, seeded eighth, was one of nine runners to burn around the track in less than a minute, running a 59.98.
Arti Haney leaped 16-5 to finish ninth in the long jump.
It all added up to a fifth-place finish for the Trojans with 54 points, placing behind only champion Merrillville (109), runner-up Lake Central (97), Valparaiso (78.5) and Crown Point 70.
At state, Chesterton will compete in the 100, 200, 4x100 and 4x400 relays and Bradley will run in all four. Then the next races she runs for a school will be at Butler University in Indianapolis, leaving behind special basketball and track memories, a trail of them long enough to stretch all the way from Indy to Chesterton and back.