The Encampment High School track team spent a good portion of the weekend on the road traveling to two meets, one in Cheyenne on Friday and the other in Guernsey on Saturday.
It had been a couple weeks since the team competed. Last week’s meet in Wheatland was canceled by the hosting school due to snow, and the team did not attend the meet previous to that one in Big Piney. For many of the athletes, it was their first competition of the season.
The team’s coach, Kegan Willford said the meet was important to the students because it allows them to get a baseline of their performance upon which to strive to improve upon for the rest of the season.
“We were looking for marks just to work off of for the remainder of the year,” Willford said. “ That was a big thing to just get that put together, to get marks in several events.”
The girls’ varsity team placed in eighth place at the Okie Blanchard Track Meet in Cheyenne on Friday, and landed a fifth place finish at the Guernsey Invite in Guernsey on Saturday. The junior varsity team had a ninth place finish in Cheyenne on Friday, and the boy’s varsity team placed tenth the next day in Guernsey.
McKenzie Powell led her team both days with second place finishes in the 400 meter dash on both days, and a fourth place finish in the triple jump on Friday. Paige Powell placed well on Saturday’s meet with a third place finish in both the triple jump and high jump, and a fourth place finish in the 400 meter dash.
On Saturday, Ashlynn Johnson placed second in the 1,600 meter run, finishing the race in 6 minutes and 33 seconds.
For an early season meet, Willford was happy with the performance. “We had a lot of kids do really well, either in just setting marks in events that they had never competed in before,” he said. “Some of the other kids also set personal records as well this weekend, so it was nice to see that.”
Looking forward, Willford is looking for improvement, even though it is still very early in the track season.
“We definitely have set goals at the end of the year with regionals and state,” he said. “But every track meet we go to builds up to the moments at the end of the year.”
The next track meet for the Encampment Team, the Green River Invite, will be held April 22 in Green River.
Reader Comments(0)