Girls’ team finishes 4th in regionals
Staff writer
The Centre track squad may be small, 19 in all, but it is mighty, sending 10 athletes, five girls and five boys, to the state track meet later this week in Wichita.
Coach Alan Stahlecker is ecstatic.
“We will be taking a total of 10 athletes to the state meet and they will compete in eight events,” he said. “Both are the highest numbers we have achieved in quite a few years.”
Girls
Despite their small numbers, the girls’ team finished in fourth place among 18 schools at the 1A regional meet Friday at Burlington.
“The girls’ fourth-place finish in team scoring at the regional meet is the highest that I can recall in my 13 seasons of coaching track at Centre,” Stahlecker said.
Junior Brenna Shields took first place in long jump, qualifying for the second consecutive year, this time with a personal record of 16 feet, ¼ inch. She also qualified in javelin and 4x100 relay.
Senior Cacey Simons finished first in triple jump at 32 feet, 7 inches. This was her first individual qualifying event.
Junior Shelby Makovec finished second in the 3,200-meter run with a time of 13 minutes, 7.11 seconds.
The girls’ 4x100 relay team of Simons, Marie Miklus, Makovec, and Shields finished second at 54.60 seconds. Sophomore Abigail Svoboda will take Miklus’ place at state because Miklus, an exchange student, is returning home to Germany. Svoboda has run in several other meets.
Boys
Senior Ty Simons led the boys’ team with a second-place finish in the 110-meter high hurdles. He improved from 16.65 seconds in the preliminaries to 16.42 seconds in the finals. Simons just missed going to state in that event last year.
As a newcomer to track this year, senior Nick Salamone will be competing in two events at state. He took fourth place in high jump with a jump of 5 feet, 8 inches.
Salamone also is a member of the 4x100 relay team, which finished in fourth place at 47.91 seconds. Senior Grant Srajer and juniors Dakota Stimpson and Conner Montgomery were the other team members. Srajer and Montgomery are making their third appearance at the state meet in the relay event.
State schedule
Ty Simons — hurdles: preliminaries, 2:30 Friday; finals, 10 a.m. Saturday.
Girls 4x100 relay: preliminaries, 2:55 p.m. Friday; finals, 3 p.m. Saturday.
Cacey Simons — triple jump: 3 p.m. Friday.
Nick Salamone — high jump: 3 p.m. Friday.
Boys 4x100 relay: preliminaries, 3:15 p.m. Friday; finals, 3:20 p.m. Saturday.
Brenna Shields — javelin: 6:30 p.m. Friday.
Shelby Makovec — 3,200: 7 p.m. Friday.
Brenna Shields — long jump: 11:30 a.m. Saturday.