Saturday, April 6 — A banner day for numerous reasons.
The first official track meet at the new West Liberty facility ended with two individual wins and a team title for the Comets.
It has been a strenuous season so far for West Liberty with more cancelations than actual meets, but the Comets did not let Saturday’s golden opportunity pass them by.
“It definitely was great to win our first home meet at our new facility,” Comet girls’ track coach Michael Hart said. “We wanted to be aggressive in our home meet, and our team did that really well as a whole. Bad weather did have us postpone the meet from Tuesday, so we weren’t able to have everyone on the team there like we originally planned. But a lot of girls stepped up and filled in roles to help out the team.”
The Comets emerged victorious with 146 team points, well ahead of Lone Tree and Northeast which tied for second with 104. Midland (93) and West Branch (77) came in fourth and fifth.
For West Liberty, it excelled in the field as freshman Sully Hall won the long jump with a leap of 16-05.50 feet and senior Amerie Alvarado won the discus with a throw of 92-01 feet.
“For Amerie, it was great to see her throw a season-best and win her final home meet as a Comet,” Hart said. “She has been working extremely hard this season and has some big goals. This was a good step in the right direction for her to reach those goals.
“Sully had a phenomenal day, starting with her performance in the long jump. On her final jump, she hit 16-05.50 which is a great start for her in her first meet of the season. I am really excited to see what she can accomplish as the season moves forward.”
Hall, and her fellow sprinters, also had standout performances. Hall took fifth in the 100-meter dash (14.72 seconds), freshman Chandler Gingerich was right behind her in sixth place (15.13 seconds) while sophomore Kiley Collins took seventh in the 200-meter dash (31.73 seconds).
On the distance side, freshman Addison Guerra ran nearly three and a half miles worth of track and ended with three second-place finishes.
Those events were the 1500-meter run (6:50.34), the 3000-meter run (13:27.37) and one leg on the 4x800 meter relay team (13:46.91).
“Addison had a gauntlet of a schedule. That was a hard-fought 5,300 meters of silver she earned on Saturday,” Hart said.
The Comets also earned a victory in the 4x100 meter shuttle hurdle relay (1:15.70) beating out the only other team, Midland, by just under two seconds.
Sophomore Alyssa Lenz anchored that relay. She also earned a second-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles (18.35 seconds), a fourth-place finish in the 400-meter hurdles (1:21.16) while also anchoring the 4x400 relay team to a runner-up placement (5:01.90).
“Alyssa stepped up and filled-in for a last-minute absence and really helped the team a lot,” Hart said. “I think she really showed how tough she is going to be this season.”
Other notable performances from the meet include Alvarado taking fifth place in the shot put (28-04), freshman McKenna Hiller taking second in the high jump (4-02) and freshman Liv Garcia taking sixth in the 800-meter run (3:02.35).
It was a great day in the new digs which received rave reviews from all around.
“The new facility is incredible. It has made a huge difference, even in daily practices, and it was really cool to break it in for a meet,” Hart said. “Visiting teams had plenty of great things to say about the facility as well. Having this will undoubtedly help us grow the program and get more people involved and excited about track and field in the community.”
It won’t be long before the boys get their turn with their first home meet coming on Thursday, April 18.
For the girls, they won’t have to travel too terribly far in the coming weeks. After running up in Clinton on Tuesday (April 9), they will set their sights on meets in Tipton on April 11 and Durant on April 16.
After just two meets in the first three weeks of the season, the grind is about to begin.
“It was great to see the girls push themselves at this meet since they’ve been hard to come by with our spring weather so far,” Hart said. “That is definitely about to change as we get into the heart of the season where we have a minimum of two meets per week.
“I think the girls showed themselves the grit that is needed to be competitive and that will set us up greatly moving forward.”