Spring break and poor weather didn’t stop the Montezuma-Cortez track program from hosting its annual meet on Friday.
And with seven teams competing, M-CHS boys and girls finished in first place.
“The weather didn’t help us, but it was a good workout for the kids,” said M-CHS boys head coach Bob Archibeque. “That’s basically what we wanted to get out of this because we didn’t really specialize on one or two things, we wanted to score as many points as we could, so we loaded up on a lot of events.”
The Panthers got first place finishes in both the 4x200 (Coby Baer, Elisha Vaquera, Josh Ramos, Austin Wagner, 1:36.49) and 4x400-meter relays (Sonny Boren, Vaquera, Jesus Ruiz, Ramos, 3:40.24) and finished second in the 4x100 (Ruiz, Skyler Yarbrough, Trey Yarbrough, Obed Simental, 48.25).
In the sprints, Baer finished second in the 100 (11.89) and Austin Wagner was third (11.96). Wagner also took third in the 200 (25.30).
Ramos took second in both the 400 (54.63) and 800 (2:13.33), Elisha Vaquera finished third in the 400 (56.50), Sonny Boren was third in the 1600 (5:12.61), and Reid Littlefield finished third in the 3200 (11:48.01).
Skyler Yarbrough (18.08) and Micah Hightower (46.72) finished third in the 110-meter hurdles and 300-meter hurdles, respectively.
In field events, the Panthers added more top-three finishes.
Victor Perez finished second in the shot put (45-00), Wagner was second in the triple jump (36-03.75), Baer placed second in the long jump (19-05.25), and Vaquera finished third (19-04.5), and Skyler Yarbrough was third in the high jump (5-06).
The M-CHS girls also finished in first as a team, with top places in six events
The 4x4 team of Morgan Short, Trinity McCain, Regina Schuster and Emma Thissen took first (4:36.18), as did the 4x8 team of Thissen, Hannah Sanchez, Schuster and Ayanna Silas (11:53.68).
Then Tayla Topaha won the discus (101-10), Weslie Kirks was first in the triple jump (31-10) and 100-meter hurdles (17.02), and Thissen won the 1600 (6:28.43).
The Lady Panthers got second-place finishes from Short in the long jump (15-01), Schuster in the 400 (66.05), Ashley Wood in the 100-hurdles (17.98), Thissen in the 800 (2:52.21) and Francesca Toms in the 1600 (6:53.19).
Head coach Paul Koops filled up the distance events, and in the 3200, Mandy McAfee, Julia Damore, Corinne Damore, Rachel Zetts and Lynda LaPaz finished second through sixth.
“The distance kids we loaded up today,” said Koops. “So for them it was a great workout day. A great way to send them out on vacation: tired, but successful.”
The Mancos Blue Jays were a bit short-handed because of spring break, but the boys still managed to finish in third place.
They were led by first place finishes by Andrew Plunkett in both the high jump (5-10) and triple jump (40-03), Ro Paschal in the 800 (2:05.12) and the 4x8 team of Adrian Hernandez, Simon Kearns, Jake McKie and Paschal (8:45.86).
Then in the 200, Paschal finished second (25.00) and Andrew Christensen was fourth (25.37).
Other highlights were Kearns’ second-place finish in the 1600 (5:12.48), McKie (11:27.92) and Teslin Stecher (12:19.54) were second and fourth in the 3200, and Hernandez finished fourth in the 800 (2:16.04).
The Lady Blue Jays were down to just four competitors.
Ashley Cole placed third in the 200 (31.77) and 15th in the 100 (15.54), Faith Asnicar (23-07.5) and Andie Concannon (20-03) took 13th and 22nd in the shot put, and Concannon (60-06), Asnicar (50-09) and Geri Montoya (40-09) finished 13th, 18th and 27th in the discus.
“For us being on spring break and we had a couple of days practice this week, I was happy,” said head coach Brady Archer.
“We had a number of kids who finally got to a point where they feel comfortable out there,” he continued. “Some of our young guys, just being out there and running a race a few weeks in now, we’re starting to see some time drop.”
Dolores had a similar low-numbers problem, but the Lady Bears still clawed their way into fourth place.
Josie Bernholtz (65.84) and Sierra Schwartz (55.27) took home first-place finishes in the 400-meter dash and 300-meter hurdles, respectively, and Cameron Elder (72.81) and Dannika Noyes (77.32) finished fourth and seventh in the 400.
Senior Larissa Umberger took third in the 100 (14.34) and sixth in the long jump (14-00.5), and she (18.24) and Schwartz (18.49) finished third and fourth in the 100-hurdles.
The Lady Bears had two placers in the high jump, with Shavargus Noyes (4-08) finishing third and Cameron Elder (4-04) in fourth.
“Shavargus got third in the high jump, but she cleared 4-8, which is a P.R.,” said head coach Nick Kohler. “And the girls who got first and second also cleared 4-8 and went out at 4-10 but she had more misses. So that’s huge for her and I’m happy with that.”
As for the boys, Tristen Medina led the way with third place finishes in both the 110 (17.40) and 300-meter hurdles (44.88), and freshman Forest Pejsa finished seventh in the discus throw (89-02).
Pejsa also took 11th and 14th in the 100 (12.98) and 200 (26.77), and after battling illness, freshman Phillip Hufman finished 11th in the 800 (2:34.65).
