Track & Field: Lady Tigers claim first-ever 4A regional title

The Douglas High girls' track team has been piling up meet victories with little trouble all season long and pulled through with its biggest of the year on probably the most important week of the season.

The Lady Tigers picked up the track program's first-ever Northern 4A Regional team title, edging McQueen 102.5-100.5.

"It's a very big day for us," Douglas head coach Jim Abbott said. "The girls were ecstactic and jumping all around but I don't know if its even sunk in yet just how big an accomplishment it is.

"This has been a goal since I got here six years ago to have either one or both of our teams win a regional title. We've been working toward it and recruiting the athletes for it and it finally happened."

While Douglas claimed the team title, five girls and one boy advanced to this weekend's state championships in Las Vegas.

Jessica Waggoner claimed the school's only individual title of the year, easily winning the discus event with a throw of 135-05.

It was senior Minneah Holdridge, though, that may have turned the entire meet on its side. Holdridge was a surprise regional runner-up in the event, throwing a career-high 108-1.

"Minneah Holdridge was the turning point in the meet," Abbott said. "I had her ranked seventh or eighth come in and she comes up finishing second. That's a six or seven-point swing for us.

"It gave us a lot of points where we were expecting them and lifted us back up and pushed us over the edge to be able to win it. Without her finish, we don't win the title."

While Holdridge put Douglas in position to win the meet, it was the 4x400 relay team made up entirely of underclassmen that had to clinch the title in the final event of the day.

McQueen won the race handily, by two and a half seconds, but Douglas secured the team title with a fourth-place finish from the team of Cara Dunkelman, Kyra Barth, Tia Lyons and Halle Niehoff.

"We were seven points ahead going into that last event, but we knew McQueen was going to have an automatic 10 points in that race because they had by far the fastest time," Abbott said. "We needed at least three points to finish in a tie, so we needed a sixth-place finish for that and at least a fifth-place finish for the win.

"I told the girls they had to be within two places of McQueen in order to give us a one-place cushion. I didn't want them to get passed up at the finish or something.

They pulled through in a big way. All freshmen and sophomores and they all handled the pressure well. They were right there near their best time of the season."

The field events ruled the day for the Tigers as Jessica Gorton was second in the long jump with a leap of 16-6.25 and Liz Nickles was second in the triple jump with a distance of 34-0.75. Gorton and Kyra Barth went second and third respectively in the high jump, each clearing 5 feet.

"We just dominated with our throws and our jumpers," Abbott said. "That was crucial for us.

Freshman Cara Dunkelman was the Tigers' lone state qualifer in a running event, taking second in the 800 with a time of 2:19.82, which was just four-tenths of a second off the school record.

"She may be able to take that down at state," Abbott said. "You get the lower elevation, the tougher competition and a week of rest on her legs and you never know. That's a record that's been around since 1985, so that would be a huge record to break as a freshman."

Other important placings for the girls' team came from Katie Dry, who took sixth in both the 100 and 200 and eighth in the 400. Halle Niehoff was seventh in the 400, Tia Lyons was fifth in the 800, Kyra Barth and Amanda Brazeau were sixth and seventh in the 100 hurdles and Barth was eighth in the 300 hurdles.

Nickles was fifth in the long jump while Natasha Brown was seventh and Brazeau was sixth in the pole vault, easily besting her own school record with a height of 10 feet. Holdridge and Waggoner went fourth and fifth in the shot put.

"Most of our points came in those fourth- through eighth-placings," Abbott said. "Most of those were our freshman and sophomores. We have a lot of depth and a lot of those younger kids are going to turn around next year and turn those into top-three, top-four finishes. The future looks pretty good.

On the boys' side, Jordan Cruz turned in a gutsy performance, qualifying for state in the 200 with a second-place time of 22.73 and taking fourth in the 100 with a time of 11.23. Cruz dislocated his shoulder on Tuesday during a football drill but came back to run in the regional meet.

"He was in a pretty good amount of pain," Abbott said. "He had it in a sling on Wednesday, we tried him in the blocks on Thursday and we taped him up pretty good and he went for it. That's digging down pretty deep for an athlete to come back and compete on Saturday.

"He did not want to miss this meet. He was willing to do or try anything to be there."

The warm temperatures, which topped in the low 90s in the afternoon, caused a scary moment during the girls' 3,200.

Douglas' Amanda Boyd went down in the middle of the race with heat exhaustion and South Tahoe's Kelsey Smith went down at the end of the race with similar symptoms.

Both runners were said to be recovering fine heading intothe week.

The Sierra Lutheran boys' track team won its second-consecutive regional championship Saturday.

Wade Meddles easily ran away with regional titles in the 800 (2:00.92), the 1,600 (4:29.78) and the 3,200 (9:46.29).

Nick DePaoli took won the 200 regional title with a time of 23.70 and Bob DePaoli was second. Evan Darby was fifth in the event.

The DePaoli brothers swapped places in the 400 while Nathan Conover was fifth and Preston Lyons was sixth.

Darby was second in the 100 with a time of 12.19 while Cody Funk was fourth.

Lyons was second in the 800, Levi Grabow was fourth and Conover was fifth.

Nathanael Williams was fourth in the 1,600, Michael Kubel was fifth and Grabow was sixth.

Kubel was second in the two-mile, Williams was third and Andrew Deterding was fifth.

Conner Love took second in the 110 hurdles while Taylor Anderson was fourth.

Love finished third in the 300 hurdles, Johnny Harms was sixth, Deterding was seventh and Tim Tollefson was eighth.

The 4x100 relay team of Darby, Funk, Bradly Goins and Ryan Jackson won its event with a time of 48.58.

The 4x400 team of Conover, Grabow, Harms and Jackson was a winner with its time of 3:50.64, as was the 4x800 team of Grabow, Kubel, Lyons and Meddles at 9:00.43.

Nick DePaoli was second in the long jump, Jason Deterding was fourth in the triple jump followed by Taylor Anderson in fifth and Bob DePaoli was third in the high jump with Jason Deterding in fourth.

Love took third in the pole vault while Cody Funk was fifth and Anderson was sixth and David Zaninovich was ninth in the shot put.

On the girls' side, Sierra Stulac was sixth in the 100 with a time of 14.94; Tori Swearingen was second in the 200 with a time of 29.08 and Phoebe Mark and Emilie Weiss were eighth and 10th respectively in the 400.

Mark took eighth in the 800, Becky Grabow was fourth in the 1,600 and second in the 3,200 and Swearingen was fourth in the 300 hurdles.

The team of Stulac, Jessica Swearingen, Brittany Rupert and Aubrey McClure won the 4x200 and took second in the 4x100.

The team of Mark, Grabow, Caitlin George and Courtney Elom took third in both the 4x400 and 4x800.

Stulac took fourth in the long jump and Tori Jackson was ninth in the event.