The Salem girls 3200-meter relay team of (from left) Addison Hopple, Emily Sinsley, Sarah Sinsley and Laura Hovorka will run in the Division III state final Friday. (Salem News/Ron Firth)

The Salem girls 1600-meter relay team of (from left) Chaya Murray, Karlie Sampson, Laura Hovorka and Abby Knickerbocker will run in the Division III state meet Friday. (Salem News/Gary Leininger)

The Salem girls 400-meter relay team of (from left) Chaya Murray, Karlie Sampson, Abby Knickerbocker and Angie Hoffaker are set for the Division III state meet Friday. (Salem News/Gary Leininger)

SALEM — The Salem girls track and field team has won everything this season, so the Quakers have high hopes again for this weekend.

The Quakers are sending 12 girls in 10 events to the Division III state meet Friday and Saturday at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium in Columbus.

“It’s a great opportunity and we have so much to prove this weekend,” Salem freshman Chaya Murray said.

Murray enters with the top time in the 200-meter dash (24.64 seconds) and the Quakers are looking to get points from their three relay teams.

The Salem girls are strong across the board with state qualifiers that include freshman Addison Hopple in the 800 and 3200 runs, senior Laura Hovorka in 800 run, junior Abby Knickerbocker in the 400 dash, juniors Madelyn Gorby and Peyton Colbert in the high jump, junior Macey Troy and senior Maddy Andres in the shot put and senior Karlie Sampson in the long jump.

“I know the competition is going to be steep,” Salem girls coach Ted Yuhaniak said. “All of their goals are to get on the podium.”

“For us, the goal is not just to compete, but to get on the podium,” Salem boys coach Austin Noel said. “For some, it is the state championship.”

This is the 51st annual girls state meet and the Quakers have never finished higher than fourth in the team standings. They think this could be the year.

Now we see what we can do, why not go for it?,” Sampson said.

“People are talking, but there are so many things that could happen,” Yuhaniak said.

The Quakers have piled up points in winning the F.E. Cope Invitational, the East Palestine Girls Invitational, Poland Invitational, a ninth straight Columbiana County Meet and the loaded Eastern Buckeye Conference Meet. They also finished third at the Optimist while only sending six girls in the four field events.

Then came a district title and their second regional title in three years.

“We want to focus on the 4×1 first,” Sampson said “We all work out together and worked so hard to get here.

“We think we can do really good,” Murray said.

The quest begins at 10:55 a.m. Friday with the preliminaries in the 400 relay.

“The focus is on the first event,” Yuhaniak said.

After that the message is clear.

“Just finish the job,” Yuhaniak said.