SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. – The Lingle-Fort Laramie Doggers boys and girls track teams took care of business in Division II during an invitational meet hosted by Alliance, Neb., and ran in Scottsbluff, Neb., on Thursday.
“It was a fantastic effort by both squads to win team championships,” coach Mike Lashley said. ‘The wins made it very difficult to attain PR’s at this meet, so the focus was more on competing against the other teams and less about personal records.”
The Lady Doggers won in dominating fashion, taking first in 13 of the 14. The Lady Doggers took the Div. II team title, racking up 202 points in Division II. Their next nearest competition came from Sioux County, which logged a distant second with 64 points.
LFL was one point shy of eclipsing the combined total of the second through fifth-place teams in the meet, beating out Sioux County, 64 points, Douglas, 55.5, Alliance, 47.5, and Scottsbluff, 36.
“The girls had an unbelievable day,” Lashley said. “I have never had a team win that many events in a single meet.”
Starting on the track, Kaylynn Jefferson took first in the 200-meter dash, clocking a time of 28.80 seconds, more than a second faster than the second-place finisher.
In the 800-meter run, Jenna Kaufman captured the title with a time of 2:55.43. Shelby Heilbrun was not far behind Kaufman, finishing third in the half mile with a time of 3:09.69. Rounding out the distance events, Jenny Manus finished first in the two-mile run (14:26.89) with Cora Frederick coming in third (15:10.39).
Georgia Wollert completed a sweep of the two hurdle events, taking first in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 17.04 seconds and first in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 52.76 seconds. Makenna Greenwald finished second in the 300-meter hurdles (53.31 seconds), while Kaylan Maez took the bronze in both the 100-meter hurdles (18.42 seconds) and 300-meter hurdles (54.09 seconds).
In the throwing events, Savannah Mirich put on a show, taking the crown in the shot put and discus. Her throw of 30 feet, 3.5 inches in the shot put was almost two feet further than the second-place thrower. In the discus, Mirich recorded a throw of 85 feet, 3 inches. Paige Forkner took third in both the shot (26 feet, 11 inches) and disc (81 feet, 1 inch). Rhylea Horejs was the third Lady Dogger to throw, taking 10th in the shot put and 13th in the discus.
Wollert added to her titles in Scottsbluff, clearing 5 feet in the high jump to take first. Heilbrun finished fifth in the high jump after getting over 4 feet.
Greenwald took the crown in both the pole vault and triple jump. She was six inches above the competition in the pole vault (7 feet) and more than a foot further than the competition in the triple jump (31 feet, 7 inches).
Also in the pole vault, Maez recorded a third-place finish after getting over 6 feet. In the triple jump, Jefferson finished fourth (29 feet, 10.5 inches) and Jade Cooper finished seventh (26 feet, 0.25 inches).
Closing out the individual events, Jefferson and Greenwald finished back-to-back in the long jump. Jefferson’s jump of 14 feet, 10.75 inches earned her the top spot and Greenwald recorded a jump of 14 feet, 3.5 inches to take second. Cooper finished ninth in the long jump, clearing 12 feet, 2.75 inches.
Manus, Kaufman, Frederick and Heilbrun finished first in the 3200-meter relay, clocking a time of 12:10.62. Jefferson, Maez, Cooper and Wollert experienced the same success in the 1600-meter relay, taking first with a time of 4:41.94. In the only event that the Lady Doggers competed in but did not take first, Manus, Kaufman, Heilbrun and Cooper finished 0.07 seconds out of first in the 400-meter relay, turning in a time of 59.01 seconds.
In the boys’ action, LFL did not win as dominantly, but the Doggers still racked up 148 team points. Scottsbluff finished second with 68 points and Alliance took third with 65 points.
“The boys put up some good numbers,” Lashley said. “It was nice to have back some of the kids that have been gone the last few meets with other activities.”
On the track, Landen Fuller picked up two first-place finishes. His time of 23.10 seconds in the 200 earned him first. He turned in a time of 53.11 seconds in the 400 to take the crown.
In the 100-meter dash, Clay Colton finished 10th with a time of 13.10 seconds. Colton also took 10th in the 200, turning in a time of 27.10 seconds.
Moving to the distance events, Gaven Niles recorded a first-place finish, crossing the line two seconds sooner than the second-place finisher, recording a time of 2:20.18. Jackson Gregory and Zane Rising finished back-to-back in the half-mile, turning in times of 2:41.14 and 2:48.97 to take 10th and 11th. In the two-mile, Christian Burton took second (12:28.43) and Alex Pugsley finished third (13:02.22).
The Doggers finished back-to-back atop the podium in the 300-meter hurdles. Cole Shepardson took first with a time of 44.89 seconds and Rhett Greenwald finished seconds, recording a time of 47.30 seconds.
Justice Madayag had a solid day in the field, finishing in the top-two in three events. He took the top spot in the high jump, clearing 5 feet, 10 inches. In the triple jump, the second had a 40 feet, 8.5 inch effort to take the crown. He was edged out in the long jump, but still took second with a jump of 18 feet, 3.5 inches.
In the pole vault, Greenwald finished second with a vault of 9 feet, 6 inches and Niles turned in a vault of 8 feet to take fourth.
Tyler Hunt picked up two silvers in the throwing events. In the shot put, he turned in a 44 feet, 2 inch effort. Hunt’s throw of 115 feet, 10 inches in the discus earned him second. Dagan Davis took fifth in the discus (107 feet, 9 inches) and eighth in the shot put (33 feet, 9.5 inches). Gage Correa finished 17th in the shot put (29 feet, 2 inches), while Rayden Alonzo finished 19th in the discus (56 feet, 1 inch).
The Doggers return to the track on Friday to compete in the Pine Bluffs Invitational. Field events start at 9 a.m., with track events slated to start at 11 a.m.
“Hopefully, next week at Pine Bluffs we can get most of our team back together to get a really good look at what we have,” Lashley said. “We still have plenty of things to work on.
“We need to firm up some field event technique across the board and our relay exchanges are not yet where we need them to be. Conditioning-wise, we will make a big put the next few weeks, before we begin to taper down for conference, regionals and state.”
