Trojans lost two sprinters to graduation and one to injury from last season’s 4x100 relay team that broke the school record multiple times and with Kenedi Bradley and three new faces returns to the state meet

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Anchoring a 4x100 with the state runner-up in the 100 meters is always a nice place to start when building a relay team. Having a girl who ran a 12.95 as a freshman to join Kenedi Bradley added to the excitement.
The Trojans were just two solid sprinters away from believing they could better their 12th-place finish at state in 2025.
Then Addison Pack suffered an ankle injury that wiped out her sophomore track season and the challenge went from finding two sprinters to fill out the foursome to identifying three, a far taller task.
But Chesterton did it and the Trojans placed third at the Portage regional with a time of 48.11 to become the No. 11 seed at Friday’s state meet at North Central High School in Indianapolis.
The four runners in the relay just happen to run in the order of their classes in school, which also happens to be the order of their height.
Freshman Lilly Duracz blasts out of the blocks and hands the baton to sophomore Allie Anderson, who hands it to junior Avah Rajski, who passes it to Bradley, a senior.
It all fell into place when Duracz, a soccer player, and Anderson, a volleyball player, came out for track.
Duracz already had signed up for club soccer and was the varsity’s fourth-leading goal scorer with seven and fourth on the team with five assists. Skipping the club soccer season wasn’t an option, so adding track to her schedule would take some work, but she was up to it.
“It was like double practice every day,” Duracz said. “I wanted to stay in shape for soccer and then I ended up really liking track.”
Her cousin Nathan Vaughan is seeded No. 1 in the long jump at Saturday’s state meet in the long jump, No. 10 in the 300 hurdles, No. 3 in the 4x100 relay and No. 6 in the 4x400 relay. So, naturally everyone asks Duracz if she has any interest in expanding her tool box by taking up the long jump.
“Probably not,” Duracz said. “It doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t think I’d be very good at it.”
Anderson stood out so much when the the girls sprinted at volleyball workouts that Coach Lindsay Nibert suggested Anderson try out for track, so she did and became so fast so quickly that she not only is the second-fastest on the relay but was fifth at the Chesterton sectional in the 100 with a 12.90. She also placed third in the sectional 200 and fifth at the regional.
Rajski is the second-most experienced runner on the relay.
“I started in eighth grade and felt like I would be good at it, so I wanted to try it,” Rajski said. “And I’ve just loved it ever since, so I just stuck with it.”
By doing so she gets to hand the baton to a girl who is seeded No. 1 in the state in the 100 meters, and last season placed second in the 100 and fifth in the 200.
“Kenedi’s a really good leader,” Duracz said. “She keeps us together well as a team. She wants everything to be done right but she does it in a good way.”
Added Rajski: “Yes, she’s very sweet.”
Bradley had some ground to pick up when she took the baton from Rajski at the regional and tore past traffic to get to the finish line 0.03 seconds ahead of Lake Central. Thanks to that, Duracz, Anderson and Rajski are competing at state.
“I really wouldn’t say that,” Bradley said of the notion that she carried three friends to state for their first taste of the ultimate meet. “We all work together. We all work really, really hard and it is cool that we got two out of the three relays to state, which is awesome. We didn’t do that last year with the sprints, so it’ll be really fun. I love these girls. They’re so amazing.”
The time the girls posted at the regional was just 0.04 seconds slower than the school record set last year by Ava Kontos, Kaylee Dade, Pack and Bradley and faster than any time run by a Chesterton 4x100 relay team before the Trojans broke the school record multiple times last season.