For the first time in 2018, the Mingus Union High School track and field team competed locally, at the Red Rock Multi-Meet at Sedona Red Rock High School on Tuesday, March 20.
Later in the week, some more veteran Marauders went to the 78th Nike Chandler Rotary Open at Chandler High School on Friday and Saturday, March 23 and 24. At Red Rock, many of the Marauders turned in top performances. Against a field of nearly 4,000 at Chandler, they did even better. As the season moves along, the coaching staff can begin to evaluate where their top athletes will end up.
“Everyone exceeded our expecations at the meet this weekend. It’s a tough meet with quite a bit of good competition, and I can’t think of a kid who didn’t exceed our expectations on Friday,” Mingus head coach Molly Westcott said. “It puts us in a good place for the rest of our season. We’ve been trying to kind of put the pieces together really like a big puzzle …. Friday gave us a really good picture of how we want to move things around for the rest of the season, so quite a few kids are standing out that we’re going to start putting into different places such as relays. They’re making it almost difficult for us to have to make decisions because everyone is doing so well.”
At the beginning of the season, Westcott pointed out that this year’s team is comprised of a group of veterans and a group of inexperienced athletes. Just four meets into its schedule, she has seen the team come together well.
“Honestly they’ve been meshing really well. Even our 4 x 4 [girls] team has a senior and a freshman on it. Everything has been falling into place really well,” Westcott said. “The seniors are taking a good role and the freshmen are kind of exceeding our expectations, so that’s been going better than I expected, actually.”
Marauders senior Hannah DeVore said she has found herself in a good spot at this point in the season compared to last, and it showed at the Chandler meet. DeVore took second in the 300-meter hurdles at Red Rock but took first at Chandler, in 46.50 seconds, more than two seconds faster than this season’s state automatic qualifying standard.
DeVore swept the hurdles, also winning the 100-meter hurdles [16.33], another automatic qualifying time and faster than her fifth-place finish at the 2016 state meet. She tied for ninth in the long jump as well [15-05].
“My goal is really to enjoy every moment of [senior season]. God’s blessed me with a great three years [and] I think he’s going to bless me with another good one, and I just want to have fun and push myself and just do my best because that’s all I can do,” DeVore said. “I’m better this year at this point than last year, so I feel really good about it. I think I’m getting better.
“There’s been a lot of surprises in the younger kids, they’ve been doing really good. Some of them are really coming out and they’re just really adding a lot to our team, which we need because we have a lot gaps to fill and I definitely think some of them are getting filled. I think the kids are doing great and working really hard. I think a lot of them have a great future in this program and they’re going to fill it in the years to come.”
Mingus junior Meg Babcock won the 800-meter run at Chandler in 2:24.68, nearly three seconds better than the runner-up. Babcock was 11th in the 400-meter dash [1:02.17]. The girls 4 x 400-meter relay team took first at Red Rock and seventh at Chandler in 4:24.22, a provisional qualifying time.
At Chandler, Marauders senior Katelyn Prouty finished eighth in the triple jump [31-08], a provisional qualifying distance. Sophomore Zoey Arwine finished 28th in the shot put [26-02].
Westcott pointed out freshman Natalee Rogers as a standout so far. Rogers took sixth in the 100-meter dash [13.07] at the Gaucho Invite on March 9. Rogers finished 10th in the 400 [1:03.90].
On the boys side, junior Kendrew Streck led the way, winning the shot put [46-04] by more than two feet at Chandler. Westcott said that at Sedona, Streck threw 49 feet, getting within a foot of the school record. At Chandler Streck took fourth in the discus [125-00], nearly three feet farther than at state.
Junior Jonathan Jung cleared six feet to tie for second in the high jump down in the Valley. Jung took home another top-three performance when he tied for second again, this time in the triple jump [41]. Junior Nick Bloniarz tied for 11th in the high jump by getting over the five-foot-four mark.
Sophomore Lucas Doerksen took 51st in the 800 meters [2:10.38] after having a better finish at Sedona by about a second. The boys 4 x 400 relay team took second at Red Rock and 16th at Chandler [3:41.20].
Official results from the Sedona meet were not available at press time.
