The Sulphur track teams continue to perform well as they gear up for regionals and state in the coming weeks.
“We had a really productive week and I can see the confidence of the team growing,” said Sulphur head coach Emile Heitland. This is the time of the track season where we need to be seeing improvement in times, distances and heights and that’s what happened this week.”
Sulphur’s field event team members and hurdlers went to OBU last Tuesday to compete and then the entire team traveled to Ada on Friday for a meet.
“We decided to give our runners a break on Tuesday to stay home and practice,” Heitland said. “We let some of our field event guys have a chance to just focus on their event without having to worry about running events.”
Heitland spoke about the importance of field events for team scoring as the Dogs look to fare well at regionals and state in that regard.
“For us to have a successful regional and state meet we need our field event guys to score big,” Heitland said. “Our throwers had a good week. Justus Gilliam and Nash Williamson both PR’d this week in the discus.”
Williamson was 2nd in the discus at OBU, while Gilliam was 2nd in the shot and 3rd in the discus at Ada.
Brytan Gaddy continued to stand out, as he placed 1st in the long jump at Ada and 3rd at OBU.
“He had a very successful week in long jumping. He had big jumps at both OBU and Ada. He had a PR at Ada with a 22-03 jump,” Heitland said.
Heitland talked about the heavy competition at Ada and how proud he was of his team for placing 2nd as a team.
“The Ada meet was loaded with talented teams so it was a good measuring stick to see where we stand right now with some of the better teams in the state,” he said. “I felt good about where we finished at Ada and thought we could have won the meet if we hadn’t pulled a few kids out events late in the meet to rest and would have had a couple breaks go our way.”
Kaleb Madron won the 800 at Ada with his best time of the year, 2:00.
“He continues to get stronger each week,” Heitland said.
The relay teams also performed well, as the 4x100 team (Gaddy,Austin Garrrett, Damontre Patterson, Trace Todd) won 1st with a new best time.
The same group also set a new school record in the 4x200 with a time of 1:29, which was good for 2nd.
The 4x400 (Todd, Gaddy, Garrett, Triston Grantham) got 3rd, as did the 4x800, which had a PR at 8:35, knocking seven seconds off the previous record for the group.
Patterson was also 1st in the 100, while Grantham was 5th in the 300 hurdles. Dax Lowrance was also 5th in the high jump and Jake Monetachi was 5th in the pole vault.
At OBU, Grady Hardoin was 3rd in the 300 hurdles and Lowrance was 3rd in the high jump.
Landy DeArman won the pole vault, continuing his strong season.
“He had a great day at OBU in the pole vault,” said Heitland.
On the girls side, Sulphur was led again by Jayden Lee.
She was 5th in the 800 at Ada and 3rd in the 800 at OBU.
“She has been fun to watch the last couple of weeks,” Heitland said. “She is just starting to figure out how to run the 800 and you can see her confidence growing. It will be exciting to see how she finishes up the year.”
Amaurie Peters was 3rd in the 200 and 3rd in the 400 at Ada, but placed 1st in the 400 at OBU.
“She continues to run really strong in the 400,” Heitland said. “She has gotten the opportunity the last couple of weeks to compete against many of the top 4A 400 girls and has shown she should be in the mix once we get to the postseason.”
The girls 4x400 relay (Lee, Jadelyn Scheer, Peters and Kate Woods) was 2nd at the Ada meet.
Scheer also ran well both times in the 400, taking 4th at Ada and 3rd at OBU.
Kenleigh Johnson continued her strong season, placing 1st in the discus and 3rd in the shot at OBU.
PHOTOS BY DON COFFEY
