Lady Longhorns record some good times, marks early

    Class C’s returning state championship girls’ team kicked off its 2018 season last Thursday, turning in some good marks and times.
    Chase County made the short trip to Grant last Thursday for its season opener, a four-team meet that also included Dundy Co. Stratton and South Platte.
    No team scores were tallied or medals awarded, but the Lady Longhorns captured 11 firsts out of the 17 events.
    Among those were some impressive showings this early, said Coach Troy Hauxwell.
    Chase County continued its dominance of all three relays, winning the 400, 1600 and 3200.
    In addition, throwers from Chase County turned in some good marks, with junior Allison Owings winning both events and Andrea Page capturing a second and third.
    The team also tallied firsts in every race from the 100 through the 1600, with two of those wins by Adelaide Maxwell (100 and 200), two from Mallie McNair (400 and 800) and the 1600 won by Madison Brown.
    Also finishing first was Alexis Richmond in the 300 meter hurdles.    
    The meet setup last week did not mirror a regular invitational with no preliminaries and race finishes based on time. In some of the relays and distance races, boys and girls were run at the same time.
    While not the ideal, Coach Hauxwell said the meet provided a chance to help push his athletes in some events to see where they are.
    That was hard to gauge in some areas with just two entries, he noted.
    Sickness also took some of Chase County’s athletes out of the meet.
    “We still need to fill in some pieces. We have some work to do yet,” he said.
    He said there were several standouts at the Perkins County Quad.
    Among those efforts were  from Owings and Page in the throws.
    In winning the discus over 20 other competitors, Owings set a personal best with her throw of 119’10”. Her best up to that point was 119’2.5” set last year, Hauxwell said.
    Likewise, while not a best, her shot put winning throw of 37’3.5” was far ahead of the 33-foot best at this meet last year.
    Hauxwell said those marks were “big” for her in the season’s first meet.
    Page also had great season opening marks in both events, he said, as the senior placed second in the discus and third in the shot.
    “They are both ahead of last year’s pace,” he said.
    Highlighting Chase County’s relay sweep was the time turned in by the 400 team of McNair, Maxwell, Sophie Spady and Kamrie Dillan.
    With just Maxwell back from last year’s state championship team, Hauxwell said last week’s time of 51.79 seconds was impressive.
    “And that was with a shaky last exchange,” he said.
    Peyton Fiedler was out sick and would have been one of the four in that relay, he said. McNair replaced her last week.
    McNair’s open 400 meter time broke the 60-second mark, as she finished at 59.96.
    “That was big,” He said.
    He also sees some promise in the high jump. Sophomore Jozie Schilke cleared 4’8” for second place, which is just shy an inch of her personal best, he said. Schilke was over the bar at 4’10” last week, but her hand scraped the bar and knocked it off.
    While they’ll still need to improve, Hauxwell said he was happy to see three of the triple jumpers over the 30-foot mark, led by Macy Coleman’s second place jump of 30’6.25”.
    In the distance races, Hauxwell had a lot of runners. The Lady Longhorns took the top four spots in the 1600, as well as sixth, but only nine runners competed in the girls’ division.
    He said times will need to come down in the 3200 meter, as well. Chase County was led by Kaley Hauxwell in the 3200 with third place.
    The long jump is one event where they’ll need to keep working, he said. Chase County’s best finish was Ashley Bubak’s seventh place jump.  
 

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