The five meets against schools in Region 7 are set-up to allow runners, throwers and jumpers competitive practice for invitationals where they can qualify for the state meet held at Brigham Young University on May 16-17. Even though it is the very beginning of the season, the THS track team has their eyes set on the state meet. But first, they have to make it through their region.
"[Region 7] has to be one of the toughest regions in the state," said distance coach Randy Quarez. "Our goal is to have kids improve times and gain the respect of other schools in performance and sportsmanship."
Quarez, who is also the THS cross-country coach, believes that the distance runners will have a more difficult time competing against runners at Provo, Payson, Springville, Timpview and Mountain View.
"They will have to qualify by times, not places at the Region 7 meet to qualify for state," Quarez said.
In last week's region meet Morgan Palmer, Jennii Torgenson, Aimee Farley and Tashina Hathaway took fourth through seventh places in the 1600-meter run finishing behind Megan Curtis of Payson and Katherine Chipman and Amy Andrus both of Provo. Meanwhile only Sam Mitchell placed in the 1600-meter run for Tooele taking sixth place at 5:09. Being the first meet of the season, Quarez sees room for improvement and they have many meets to take seconds off their times.
"There is always going to be a dark horse runner," Quarez said. "We have a great number of new runners combined with the veterans and they all get along well. The new runners will exceed expectations and push the veterans."
Although the distance runners may have a difficult time qualifying for the state meet, the javelin, discus and shot-put throwers for both boys and girls at Tooele seem to have an easier time.
"We've already seen a lot of personal records early in the season," said senior captain Cody Mott.
At the Payson meet, freshman Riley Mulitalo swept the girls throwing events with a 32 foot seven inch toss in the shot-put, 86 foot two inch finish in the discus and 79 foot two inch heave in the javelin. Kenya Mamales and Alyssa Rice came in second and third in both the shot-put and discus giving Tooele a first, second and third place finish in both events.
Mott finished second in the shot put with a throw of 40 feet four inches while teammate Kolt Wright finished third at 38 feet six inches. Three inches separated Wright and Mott in the discus with Wright's final throw coming in at 117 feet 9 inches and Mott's at 117 feet six and a half inches.
The sprinters and jumpers are also looking forward to the tough season, but have a head start with a few great marks at last Wednesday's meet. Jordan Clemente, Milo Leakehe and James DeSantiago took first through third respectively in the long jump. Clemente's jump of 20 feet 11 inches is 10 inches over the state qualifying jump.
Cassidee Christensen is one of the top girl jumpers for THS and finished in third at Payson with a jump of 15 feet six inches. However, it's the high jump that coach Gary Lund feels needs the most work. Tiffany Caldwell and Amya Biorge both jumped four feet six inches in the high jump.
As for the sprinters, Lindsey Terry took second in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.6 seconds. Senior captain Talon Hughes , Travis Brady, Brad Woodruff and Eric Shields took second through fifth places respectively in the 400-meter dash. Jordan Biorge and Jordan Clemente tied for third with a time of 11.4 seconds in the 100-meter dash.
With a team of more than 120, THS track and field has grown over the last few years. Their talent, along with the schools in their region, has really stepped up forcing Tooele increase their competitiveness.
As Quarez said, "Region will be insanely tough this year."
Missy Thompson: missy@tooeletranscript.com
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