Arnie Young Invitational Highlights 4-6-2019
The Jaguar Track Squad headed North to Renton Memorial Stadium on Saturday for the Arnie Young Invitational. Wind, rain, sunshine, and more wind made for a fun day! Both teams finished in the top-10 and had several great performances.
Our freshmen boys continued their re-writing of the record books, as this group has now accounted for freshmen school records in every running event, including hurdles and relays.
Freshmen Asher Ogden (15.48) and Gavin Packard (19.16) both left with personal bests in the 110 hurdles, the former establishing a new freshmen school record and moving into the top-20 all-time for Washington freshmen. Ogden followed that up with a lifetime best in the 100 meter dash (11.73) that placed him 12th overall and first among freshmen in the meet. In the same event, fellow freshmen Cantrell Thomas was 16th overall and second among freshmen. Senior Sydney Kuhlman also earned a lifetime best in the women’s 100 meter dash, running 13.90. In other hurdle action, senior Gabriela Cintron made her long awaited 2019 hurdle debut after missing most of the 2018 season with a ruptured Achilles tendon. Cintron was joined by sophomore Carley Huber, who broke the 50 second barrier for the first time and was only a few hundredths shy of going sub-49 with her time of 49.08. Sophomore Colin Rice also had a career best day in the hurdles, running 44.01.
It was a record setting day in the distance events as well, with Joel Nealon and Tommy Wirth both establishing new freshmen school records. Tommy’s time of 2:14.21 equaled Jessie Foster’s current freshmen record, and Joel Nealon shattered the previous mark in the 3200 by nearly 20 seconds, running 10:05.14 to finish in 12th place – Joel now holds freshmen school records in both the 1600 and 3200. Fellow freshmen Lucas Johnson also had a new lifetime best in the 1600, running 5:06.44, narrowly defeated senior Adam Volkman, who set a season’s best of 5:08.60.
In the women’s distance events, the Jags were led by Roz Slichko and Emily Wells, who finished first and third in the women’s 3200 meters. Slichko’s time of 11:25 was over twenty seconds better than the next finisher, and she was joined by her teammate Emily Wells, who had a great battle to the finish, ultimately ending up in third with a season best time of 11:47. Sophia Brown had a season best in the women’s 800, finishing in sixth place with a time of 2:30.74. With a quick turnaround, Brown, Wells, and Slichko came back a few minutes later to join Huber on the 4x400 relay, finishing in fourth place.
In field event action, the highlight of the day came from junior Jonah Mains, who put the shot a school record 51’1”, an improvement on his own school record from a year ago. Mains’ mark was good enough for second place in the competition and currently ranks him fourth overall in 4A state. Prior to the shot put, he also tossed the discus a season best of 121’4” to finish just outside of the scoring. Also in the throws, junior Savannah Fickle moved into #8 all-time in Emerald Ridge history with her put of 31’ in the women’s shot put. In other field event action, freshmen Xander Storts took advantage of some favorable conditions to add over 3’ to his personal best in the triple jump; the freshman leapt out past 40’ for the first time, less than 8” from the current freshmen school record set by Deon Durr in 2015.
The Jags are looking forward to Spring Break to get a little work in and we will take a select group of athletes to the Tri-Cities to compete amongst 100+ other schools in the Pasco Invitational this weekend.