After pushing through the Conference meet at Eureka High School on May 6, the girl’s track team moved to place high at the District meet on Saturday, May 14.
In post season play, the top four teams at each meet move on to face the competition at the next meet, in this case, Sectionals to be held at Lafayette on May 21.
The Lady Lancer’s managed to utilize past performers from the team in order to propel themselves forward and into a third place and advancing position by the end of the day.
The girls performed well in many of the jump events, including the high jump, in which junior Mackenzie Schweitz managed to take first place with a 5-0 jump, and the triple jump in which junior Sydnee Stottlemyre made a jump of 32-6.5 to take third.
Senior Alyssa Shaw also managed to blow past the competition in the pole vault event by vaulting 10-0 and earning a first place commendation.
Junior Emily Bush also advanced in both the shot put and the discus events by throwing 32-2 and 105-0 respectively, earning her third and fourth places and advancing her to sectionals as well.
Bush equated her success to work ethic. She said, “Off season weight training and Mizzou Track Camp all have helped me with discus.”
Amid all of this success, however, teams from Eureka and Kirkwood continued to dominate the meet, taking first and second in a majority of events and widening the margin between second placed Eureka and third placed Lafayette.
Throughout the days relay and long distance events, the Lady Lancers continued to push people through to the Sectional meet, including junior Kayla Hall who took third in the open 800 meter race and propelled the 4×800 meter relay team to a third place, and qualifying, finish.
Also moving onto future meets were the 4×400 meter Lady Lancers relay team, who managed to take fourth.
However, the Lady Lancer’s sprinting team fell short of qualifying individuals for Sectionals in the 100 meter hurdles, the 200 meter, the 300 meter hurdles, in the 400 meter and even in the 400 meter hurdles.
Senior Anastasia Harris, however, did manage to take third in the 100 meter run to claim her individual spot at the sectional meet.
In the end, the Lady Lancers were far out scored by the leading two teams, Kirkwood, who scored 139 points, and Eureka, who scored 127 points.
Still, the team’s overall score of 98 points was good enough to advance it to the Sectional meet along with Nerinx Hall, who finished the day with a score of 89.
Bush also said that the successful post season of the girls track team can be seen in their hard work.
She said, “This year the whole team has been putting in a lot of time and effort to improve our techniques. Many times we will still be out practicing well past 6 but the extra drilling is necessary because technique is key.”
She continued, “In my opinion the team has been doing great this season. We have a lot of talented athletes, plus we all are working hard but still having fun. I think all these have been attributes to our team’s success because although we all do different events we still put a lot of emphasis on being a team sport.”
“I’m proud of my teams effort. In track everyone just goes out there and gives it their all. That’s all you can do. And being on the Lafayette Track Team it is expected that you put 100 percent effort and heart into everything we do,” Bush concluded.
