Spartan track boys finish 2nd, girls 4th with different lineups in Manhattan
By The Emporia Gazette (Contact)
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
With the Kansas Relays looming at the end of the week, the Emporia High track and field team went through some changes at Monday’s Manhattan Invitational to try and keep as many athletes as rested as possible.
“We took a lot of kids out of some different events and had them run events that they normally wouldn’t run because of the Kansas Relays this week,” EHS coach Randy Wells said. “We kind of scaled it down. We didn’t want to overdo it. If we’d have been at full strength, we’d probably would have won both boys and girls, but that’s neither here nor there.”
Even with a scaled-down team, the EHS boys finished second with 97 points, just two points behind champion Manhattan, while the girls came in fourth with 71 points.
On the girls side, Samantha Kraft and Lindsey Holland went 1-2 in the pole vault, as Kraft cleared 10 feet, 6 inches while Holland cleared 8-06.
Emporia’s 4x400 and 4x800 relay teams each took first as well.
Raelynn Pearson finished second in the shot put with a best throw of 35-08 1/2 and came in fourth in the discus (102-11), while Rhani Henry came in second in the 110-meter hurdles in a time of 17.62.
Michaela Reynolds finished fourth in the 1,600 (5:35.40), and Jenna Stanbrough finished fifth in the 300-meter hurdles (51.18 seconds) and eighth in the 800 (2:29.96).
On the boys side, Eric Dorsey won the discus with a heave of 158-06 and finished third in the shot put (46-04).
Caydrick Bloomquist finished second in the pole vault (13 feet) and fourth in the long jump (20-07), while Brandon Childs placed second in the triple jump (43-04 3/4) and third in the high jump (5-10).
Eric Wells placed fourth in the javelin with a throw of 162-01. Kyle Goodwin finished third in the 300-meter hurdles in a time of 43.01 seconds.
Emporia High will travel to the Washburn Rural Invitational on Wednesday before the start of the Kansas Relays in Lawrence on Friday. Emporia will begin running events at the Kansas Relays at about 8 a.m. on Friday, with athletes scheduled to compete throughout the rest of the day and Saturday.