After the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out all but one meet of the 2020 season, Camp Verde’s track and field team was anxious to get going again in 2021. The wait got extended a little bit longer when their first two meets were canceled due to poor weather. But on Thursday, April 1, the Cowboys finally got to get things going.
Camp Verde was one of nine teams to partake in the Marauder Early Qualifier at Mingus and came out strong. The girls finished seventh while the boys were third. Coach Amy Wall came away happy with how well the individuals had improved over the course of the year.
“The kids did way better than anticipated,” Wall said. “We had a lot of first places. I think every single person PR’d, compared to the one meet we had last year.”
More than any team goals, the Cowboys are focused on self improvement and reaching their goals throughout the year.
Senior Ashlee Bueler, for example, won the discus with a distance of 92’10. Wall added that in a practice a few days later, Bueler threw a 108 discus, which would have been first in the state had it come in a competition. And in her final year in high school, being in that mix at the end of the season is one of Bueler’s goals.
“I want to throw at least 100 in the discus,” she said. “If I do that and keep building on that I can be first in state and that would be amazing. But to even just go to state and contend would be my ultimate goal.”
Another potential state contender at Camp Verde is senior Noah Zimmerman. He qualified for state as a sophomore and while his junior season was wiped out, Zimmerman is picking up right where he left off. In the first meet of the year, he won the triple jump [42’06.75], high jump [5’10.00] and finished second in the long jump [19’08.00].
“He put in a lot of work in the offseason and kept going when everything got canceled,” Wall said. “He definitely has shown leaps and bounds improvement in everything he’s doing.”
Wall also mentioned that she awards points to each athlete based on their performances. In the race for the top point-getter on the boys team, she anticipates a close contest between Zimmerman and junior Jacob Oothoudt.
Oothoudt won both the discus [127’07.00] and shotput [38’04.50] events. In the latter, his teammate, junior Kayden Boggess [36’10.00], was the runner up.
“I treat every meet like it’s going to be the last meet,” Oothoudt said. “But I also feel like this is kind of a comeback season from last year.”
Wall also touted the performance of Jena Nelson, who finished second in the girls high jump [4.8.00] and third in the long jump [13’04.00], one spot ahead of teammate Erica Graves [12’02.75].
“Our first meet was really good,” Bueler said. “Our team did really good as a whole, I think better than we all expected. Especially the boys team. In the running events we did well but in the field events like throwing and jumping, we kind of dominated. That was really fun to be a big team and go compete.”
