Moving on from zones

Times Reporter    

 

The south central zone brought their best track and field stars to Foothills Athletic Park in Calgary on May 27 for zone finals. Many students from Strathmore High School (SHS) moved on to qualify for provincials.

“Overall, it’s pretty good. It’s our second year of this format of splitting coaches into specialization areas. So we have a bigger team, and thus, results,” said SHS track coach Paul Sonsteby. “The relay kids — we haven’t had a lot of time for competition, but our exchanges went very well. The kids were pleased with this.”

Strathmore’s senior girls 4×100 relay team (Jade Balance, Carter Jones, Jessica Murphy and Cassandra Fisk) finished second in their last heat — moving on to provincials — as did their junior boys equivalents (Daryl Agerskov, Tristan Hruby, Luke MacDonald and Josh Lawal) with a time of 49.81 seconds. This finish was only 0.6 behind the leading team.

“We had some very good finishes,” Sonsteby said. “We’re losing some great seniors this year, like Carter Jones and kids like that, but we have a strong intermediate and junior core. It’s going to look good next year.”

Intermediate Karly Larson of SHS finished first in her heat, but third in the final of the 400m, with a time of 1:04.96. She did not move on to provincials, but earned six points for the school, also shaving three seconds off her time at counties. Intermediate Spartan Kyle Foster did move on for his 400m, finishing second in the zones final with a time of 54:63.

“These are challenging events we’re seeing kids finish well in. When you have heats, you don’t necessarily know how the kids in the race coming are doing. That’s thrown a few off,” Sonsteby said.

Kenny Le May of Strathmore finished second in boys senior discus with a distance of 30.53m, moving onto provincials.

As for junior boys, Siksika High School’s Brodie and Tyrine Sun Walk finished first and second in the 1500m. Brodie earned a time of 4:37, with Tyrine coming in seven seconds later.

Holy Cross Collegiate (HCC) had many top ten finishes, including high hope Christopher O’Leary. O’Leary went to provincials last year for HCC, but finished third in discus and fourth in javelin this time around.

Teammate Okeem Samuels will be moving on to provincials, after finishing second in both 100m and 200m for the junior boys.

HCC’s Kirstyn Johnson placed third in senior girls long jump, but first in senior girls triple jump.

“Kirstyn was just under in triple, and jumped far short of her personal best in long, but she’s injured and struggling through that,”  HCC athletic director Darren Perizzolo said. “I don’t know about (team) personal bests. I’ve been happy with them; I hope they’re happy with themselves.”