16 AHS athletes qualify for today’s area track meet

By Sam Waller

The Albany Lions and Lady Lions track and field teams had 13 individuals and two relays qualify for area competition with their efforts Thursday, April 6 at the District 10-2A meet at Cisco.

The area meet with District 9-2A is being held Thursday, April 13 (today) at Graham. The top four finishers in each event advance to the Region II-2A meet Friday-Saturday, April 28-29 at Springtown. Results from the area meet will be reported next week.

At the district meet, juniors Adam Hill and Kiana Roberson, both state medalists last year, won two events to take the first step toward a return to Austin.

Albany finished fourth in the boys team standings with 87 points and fifth in the girls division with 49 points.

“Most of the guys I thought would get out did,” boys coach Rod Britting said. “Lanxton Viertel was our only casualty. I thought he’d advance in one or both of the throws, but he didn’t have his best day.”

Hill won both the 110 hurdles and 300 hurdles in addition to running a leg on the 1600 relay. While his times were slower than his best, the junior still won both events by significant margins.

“Adam was making sure he didn’t trip and fall,” Britting said. “That was his goal.”

Roberson set a personal best in winning the shot put and also won gold in the discus.

“Overall, we finished about where I figured we would going in,” girls coach Ryder Peacock said. “We felt pretty good about Kiana in the throws, Briley Tabor in the pole vault, and our hurdlers (Ella Webb and Avery Everitt). It was a little more competitive in the hurdles than we were expecting, so the girls had to step up and run a really good race to advance.”

Cole Chapman qualified in four events, finishing second in the long jump, triple jump, and high jump as well as running on the 800 relay.

“A lot of those, we just took the minimum jumps so we didn’t end up injured,” Britting said. “We had jumps to spare and didn’t use them because we were in. Our goal was to advance.”

The Lions were able to advance all three pole vaulters despite Tye Edgar, a state qualifier last year, competing with a broken bone in his left hand suffered two days before the meet. Luke Marshall cleared a personal-best 14-0 to place second with Jayden Lucas third at 12-0 and Edgar fourth at 10-6.

“We were just trying to get over a bar to get Tye through,” Britting said on Tuesday. “He’s in a cast now.”

Britting said Edgar’s availability for area is up in the air. The senior also runs on the 800 relay.

“Tye’s going to give it a try, but he’s definitely inhibited from doing what he normally does,” Britting said. “We’re going to try to get him through the area meet, then for the regional meet try a soft cast or maybe take the cast off for that one day.”

The Lions claimed silver in both the 800 relay and 1600 relay. In the 800, Cason Fairchild, London Fuentes, Chapman, and Edgar ran 1:33.17. The 1600 foursome of Fairchild, Samuel Rosas, Fuentes, and Hill ran 3:30.55.

“We ran better times,” Britting said. “We wanted to get first in one of them and got second in both. We found out some things, and we know where we’ve got to get a little better.”

Wyatt Windham joined Chapman in qualifying in the high jump, while Jayce Tinkle advanced in the 400 and Huffman Heatly in the 1600. Rosas added a sixth place in the 800.

“I thought Huffman could run well, but he ran 18 seconds faster than he did the week before,” Britting said. “He almost broke 5:00, which is pretty salty.”

For the Lady Lions, Tabor was second in the pole vault, while Webb and Everitt both qualified in the 100 hurdles. Callan Edgar added a third-place finish in the 1600 and was fifth in the 800.

“I talked with Callan about the 1600 before the Clyde meet when we saw our relays were going to have to do something special to get out,” Peacock said. “She’s been running on the relays, but I told her her best shot was in the 800 and 1600. It turned out really well for her.”

Peacock added that having success in the distance races was a pleasant surprise.

“It’s hard enough to get someone to run distance, but to get them to run competitively is a different story,” he said. “Having that on the boys and girls side this year was fun to watch. We haven’t had many people in the mile the last several years.”

Also scoring points for the girls team were the 800 relay of Webb, Gineveve Soders, Madison Parrott, and Mimi Ivy, and the 1600 relay of Everitt, Ivy, Webb, and Soders. Both teams placed sixth.

In the junior varsity divisions, Albany was fourth in the boys with 70 points and sixth in the girls with six points.

For the JV boys, Mason McCloy won the pole vault  and Jaxson Street won the 200, while Calhan Fairchild finished second in the 300 hurdles. Bronze medals were earned by Woods Peterson in the pole vault, Branson Beal in the 100, along with the 400 and 800 relay teams.

Also scoring points were Parker Shelton in the discus and Aaden Mendez in the long jump.

Marie Hufschmidt accounted for all the JV girls scoring, finishing fourth in the 800 and fifth in the 1600.

DISTRICT 10-2A MEET

VARSITY BOYS

Team totals – 1. Hawley, 139; 2. Cisco, 106; 3. Stamford, 101; 4. Albany, 87; 5. Haskell, 73; 6. Anson, 14.

Long jump – 2. Cole Chapman, 21-5¾.

Triple jump – 2. Cole Chapman, 42-6½.

High jump – 2. Cole Chapman, 6-0; 4. Wyatt Windham, 5-10.

Pole vault – 2. Luke Marshall, 14-0; 3. Jayden Lucas, 12-0; 4. Tye Edgar, 10-6.

800 – 6. Samuel Rosas, 2:14.91.

110 hurdles – 1. Adam Hill, 15.12.

800 relay – 2. Albany (Cason Fairchild, London Fuentes, Cole Chapman, Tye Edgar), 1:33.17.

400 – 3. Jayce Tinkle, 54.75.

300 hurdles – 1. Adam Hill, 41.23.

1600 – 3. Huffman Heatly, 5:00.23.

1600 relay – 2. Albany (Cason Fairchild, Samuel Rosas, London Fuentes, Adam Hill), 3:30.55.

VARSITY GIRLS

Team totals – 1. Cisco, 212; 2. Stamford, 130; 3. Haskell, 92; 4. Hamlin, 51; 5. Albany, 49; 6. Anson, 34; 7. Hawley, 18.

Shot put – 1. Kiana Roberson, 39-5½.

Discus – 1. Kiana Roberson, 132-10.

Pole vault – 2. Briley Tabor, 8-6.

800 – 5. Callan Edgar, 2:48.18.

100 hurdles – 3. Ella Webb, 17.83; 4. Avery Everitt, 18.02.

800 relay – 6. Albany (Ella Webb, Gineveve Soders, Madison Parrott, Mimi Ivy), 2:01.32.

1600 – 3. Callan Edgar, 6:32.03.

1600 relay – 6. Albany (Avery Everitt, Mimi Ivy, Ella Webb, Gineveve Soders), 4:52.57.

JV BOYS

Team totals – 1. Anson, 199; 2. Stamford, 137; 3. Cisco, 119; 4. Albany, 70; 5. Haskell, 47; 6. Hamlin, 32; 7. Hawley, 3.

Discus – 4. Parker Shelton, 94-2.

Long jump – 5. Aaden Mendez, 16-10.

Pole vault – 1. Mason McCloy, 11-0; 3. Woods Peterson, 9-0.

400 relay – 3. Albany (Branson Beal, Jaxson Street, Woods Peterson, Calhan Fairchild), 47.66.

100 – 3. Branson Beal, 12.12.

800 relay – 3. Albany (Branson Beal, Jaxson Street, Aaden Mendez, Calhan Fairchild), 1:40.26.

300 hurdles – 2. Calhan Fairchild, 49.12.

200 – 1. Jaxson Street, 24.62.

JV GIRLS

Team totals – 1. Cisco, 251; 2. Stamford, 163; 3. Hamlin, 28; 4. (tie)Anson, 16; Hawley, 16; 6. Albany, 6.

800 – 4. Marie Hufschmidt, 3:05.54.

1600 – 5. Marie Hufschmidt, 7:33.78.