Pincock, Tom regional gold medal winners

RENO -- A little practice on footwork has gone a long way for Shaylyn Tom lately. On Saturday, it took the Carson High School junior all the way to a gold medal in the shot put at the Northern 4A Regional Track and Field Championships.

George Pincock also ran to victory in the boys 200 meters and later brought Carson from behind to win the 4x400 relay during the regional meet at Reno High School's Stadium 2000.

Overall, the Senators finished sixth in both the boys and girls team divisions and qualified 20 athletes for the NIAA/U.S. Bank State Championships this week in Las Vegas. The top five in each event qualified for the state meet.

"For the most part, we had a very good day," Carson coach Todd Ackerman said. "We had some very good performances."

Tom came up big in the morning when she unloaded a personal record throw of 38-feet, 1-inch to win the shot put. The mark was more than two feet better than her previous best. Also, it was one-half inch short of the stadium record set in 2001 by Galena's Janine Bodo and six feet off the meet record of 44-6-3/4 set by Carson's Jessica Marable in 1994.

"I'm so excited. All week I've been hitting it, so today, I come in and I'm thinking 38, 38, 38," Tom said. "It felt so good. It just put a big smile on my face and I kept going."

Tom set a personal record with a 36-footer on her first throw. Then came the 38-1. And to show that was no fluke, her third throw surpassed 37 feet. Andi Villasenor of Douglas finished second at 35-3-1/2, also a personal best.

"My coach has been working with me; I have to get my foot under me so I can throw up," Tom said. "I've been throwing straight, I'm throwing up now and it's making me throw a lot farther. I keep gradually moving up and hopefully I'll do that at state."

Pincock didn't start his day off so well, but the senior finished strong with gold medal performances in the 200 and 4x400 relay. Pincock won the 200 in a stadium record time of 21.87 and then joined Jon Stewart, Tyler Smith and Matt Moore to set a stadium record of 3:24.79 in the 4x400.

The relay time was seven seconds faster than this same group ran last week during the prelims. It's also a full second ahead of what the Senators ran at last year's regional, a significant statistic because that team came back the next week to finish second at the state meet in a school record time of 3:19.74.

"Last year we had a team that was pretty good all along. Now, we have four guys who are willing to work hard and we're just coming on a little later in the season," said Pincock, who is the only returnee in the quartet. "We had been running around 3:34. I wasn't expecting to run this fast, but now we realize we have the potential to run well at state."

The race was a thriller. Hug coach Yancy Young called it a shocker.

"Carson really pulled one off," Young said. "We knew they had Pincock, but we didn't know about those other guys. That was a shocker."

Stewart led off with a 51.44 effort, Smith followed with a 52.42 and Moore 51.82. Pincock was second when he took the baton, about 10 meters behind Reno, with Barrett Young of Galena and Alan Thomas of Hug close not far behind.

Young, who had earlier won the 300-meter hurdles in a meet record time, exploded down the backstretch and into second-place. Four runners entered the final corner in a pack. Pincock swung wide off the turn and was out front all the way down the home stretch. Pincock ran 48.76 for the last lap. Thomas was clocked at 48.1 and Young ran 49.

"I just stayed relaxed, tucked in tight on the corner and went with about 110 to go," Pincock said. "There was no holding back, I decided to go for broke. That was probably one of the more exciting races I've ever been in."

Earlier, Pincock ran 11.07 in the 100 but had to settle for second-place behind Hug's Isaac Porter (11.0). Pincock also ran 49.70 in the 400 to place second in the 400 behind Thomas (personal best 48.76), who won his third regional title in the event (and later won his fourth regional 800).

Carson also got a season-best 4:07.92 for third-place in the girls 4x400 relay. Katie Kotter (1:03.25), Amanda Benson (1:02.72), Sinead McSweeney (1:01.28) and Terah Laack (1:00.40) ran four seconds faster than their previous best time.

"Both those teams ran awesome," Carson sprints coach Shane Quilling said. "They ran smart and they ran their best times of the season by quite a ways."

Laack and McSweeney also earned individual tickets to state when they placed fourth and fifth in the girls 400 with respective times of 1:01.22 and 1:01.74.

Shanna Sparks qualified for state in two events as she placed third in the 1,600 in a season best time of 5:10.72 and later took second in the 3,200 in 11:22.30. Reno's Collier Lawrence led wire-to-wire in both races and won in meet record times of 5:03.99 in the 1,600 and 11:09.48 in the 3,200.

Carson's Mike Dittenber advanced when he placed third in the high jump with a season-best height of 6-4. Galena's Justin Houk cleared 6-6 to win the event and defending state champion Nate Meckley cleared 6-4 to take second.

Carson also qualified teams in both the boys and girls 4x200 relay races. The boys team of Jack Brooks, Sam Pincock, Stewart and Frank Bleuss placed fourth in 1:32.18, a season best by two seconds. The girls team of Amanda Benson, Kotter, Laack and McSweeney placed fourth in 1:48.68, a season best by more than one second.

Eric Hasty nearly qualified in the pole vault, but settled for seventh on misses at 12-0. Ten vaulters were still in the competition when the bar was raised to 12-feet.