Meeker girls rack up 197.5 points

MEEKER I The Meeker High School girls’ track team dominated the Panther Invitational track Meeker in Rangely with 197.5 points and the Meeker boys’ team finished second behind the host team.
Meeker senior Aly Ridings led her team with three individual first place finishes, including the 100-meter hurdles, the long jump and triple jump and she was a member of the winning 4×100 relay team. Cowboy freshman Halle Ahrens was the fastest sprinter on Yeager Field on Saturday, winning both the 100- and 200-meter dashes.
“Aly had a really impressive triple jump of 33-4.75, which should punch her ticket to the state meet in that event,” head coach John Strate said. “Halle ran an excellent 100-meter dash, breaking the 13-second barrier for the first time, with her time of 12.88.”
Senior Ohana Mataia won the shot put with 31-3.5 and scored more team points with a second place finish in the discus, with a throw of 100-4.
Meeker sprinter Linda Olivas finished second in the 100 and fourth in the 400 and Julia Eskelson placed second in the 1600. Maggie Phelan had the second best time in the 800 and Kinzy Burke placed second in the high jump, third in the 100 hurdles and fourth in the 300 hurdles.
The Meeker girls also had the fastest teams in the 4×100-relay and the 4×200-relay, and finished second in the 4×800.
“We had a great day in Rangely and it all started off by two really gutsy performances from both our boys’ and girls’ 4×800-meter relays,” Strate said. “The girls, running with the same group as last week; Julia Eskelson, Reece Pertile, Maggie Phelan and Piper Haney, completed the race in 11:50 and the exact same group ran the race in 11:50 the week before.”
While the girls’ 4×800 team finished second, the Meeker boys’ team won the same relay and pushed themselves into the top six in 2A.
Meeker’s J.C. Henderson, Tristin Pelloni, Caleb Lange and Aaron Cochran completed the race in 8:54, which elevated their time from 22nd in the state to the sixth position.
Lange was the only Cowboy to win an individual event, when he ran the 1600 in 5:20.4 and teammate Marshal Pool was second. Pool also finished third in the 3200 and Cochran finished second in the 800. Senior Jeremy Musgrave finished second in the triple jump and third in both the long and high jump events.
Sophomore Noah Overton placed second in the shot put and classmate T.J. Shelton finished second in the 100 to North Park’s Clay Russell and was fourth in the 200. Kash Atwood also scored team points with a third place finish in the discus.
The Cowboys will run, jump, throw and put in Craig on Friday and Strate is looking forward to the meet.
“There should be some great races, including Halle Ahrens running against the top 3A sprinter in the state from Moffat County,” Strate said.