Sisters track team trounces Sky-Em foes

Going up against two of the top programs in the league in the first scoring meet of the season, the Sisters track teams vanquished both Cottage Grove and Marist on Thursday, March 19.

The boys' team won seven of 10 running events and scored heavily in the field events to win the meet with 96 points. Marist was second with 46 and Cottage Grove finished third with 39.

The team of Levi Rowe, Lee Elder, Jared Nelson and Hayden Stein got things started right away with a clear victory in the 400-meter relay, winning by over a second in 45.57 seconds. Elder (12.05) and Stein (12.16) went 1-2 in the 100, and Rowe (54.6) in the 400.

Jared Henderson took an early lead and won the 800 in 2:06.5 to lead a sweep of the race with Elder (2:08.1) and Drew Harrison (2:09.4) finishing second and third.

Stein came through with a win in the 200 (24.7), with Nelson (25.5) and Tim Hernandez (25.7) right behind. In the 3,000, Parker Bennett posted a very strong early season time of 9:30 to win, and Henderson, Mike Calavan, Sam Orwig, and Patrick Young capped the meet with a win in the 1600-meter relay in 3:36.7.

In the field, Nelson cleared 13 feet in the pole vault for the victory and Rowe captured the triple jump with a fine leap of 39 feet 6 inches.

The girls produced similar results, winning the meet with 94 points. Marist scored 52 and Cottage Grove 32. Top performers for the Outlaws included freshman Chelsea Reifschneider, who won the 100-meter hurdles (18.2) and the 300-meter hurdles (50.0) and junior Courtney Satko who won the 800 (2:33) and placed second in the 100 (13.5). Emi Conrads won the 3,000 meters (12:02) and French exchange student Nathalie Tresseras placed second in a very fast 1,500 (5:11) and second in the 800 (2:38).

The quartet of Hayley Palmer, Tia Berg, Conrads and Satko brought home the final first-place finish of the running events with a win in the 1,600-meter relay in 4:19.7.

Jessica Head tossed the javelin 108 feet 11 inches and Sara Small cleared 8 feet 6 inches to win the pole vault.

Coach Bob Johnson felt very positive about his teams' efforts so early in the season.

"It was so encouraging to see the kids competing hard and coming away with smiles on their faces," he said. It's early in the season, so we will be looking forward to how we match up with these teams again when we see them again next month."