SUMMERLAND – The N-V varsity track team traveled to Summerland on Tuesday, April 29th for an 8-team invitational. The beautiful weather led to 20 season-best marks earned by the Cougar high school athletes! It was a very different line-up of events for N-V as many of the kids were in new/akward events or held out of other certain events. This was due to the Norfolk Classic being held two days later and then the Niobrara Valley Conference meet another two days after that. Teams competing in this track meet were… Boyd County, CWC, Hartington-Newcastle, Niobrara-Verdigre, Santee, St. Mary’s, Stuart, and Summerland. The N-V girls team finished runner-up, falling just 5 points behind St. Mary’s (109-114). And the boys team finished in 6th place with Summerland boys earning the championship trophy.
Some highlights of the meet included… Taylen Stark earning 2 golds (400M & 1600M) along with one silver (800M) and 4th place in long jump. Other gold medalists were Allison Sucha (long jump), Taylor Pavlik (shot put), and Delani Runnels in her only event of the day, 3200M. In addition to Taylen, others to bring home four medals were: Allison Sucha and Nora Kucera. And one of Allison’s medals was a silver in the pole vault. She becomes the first Niobrara-Verdigre girl athlete to compete in the event and achieved a mark of 8-0. All relays also earned medals. On the boys side, Wyatt Shabram was again the leading point scorer with Kellen Vesely following closely behind. Jacob Motacek (silver 137-3) and Isaac Pavlik (5th place) each hit PR’s in the discus. Arlan Lammers’ new event in this meet, 300M hurdles, saw him earn bronze in addition to his 5th place high jump. All three boys relay teams also earned medals.
We were small in numbers again but up for the challenge. 11 different boys were medalists in the meet. And on the girls’ side, all 10 athletes competing earned at least one medal! Individual medalists were…
GIRLS
High Jump: Nora Kucera 3rd place.
Pole Vault: Allison Sucha 2nd place ** school record 8-0 **
Long Jump: Allison Sucha 2nd place, Taylen Stark 4th place.
Triple Jump: Nora Kucera 5th place.
Shot Put: Taylor Pavlik 1st place.
Discus: Chloe Hanzlik 3rd place.
100M hurdles: Allison Sucha 2nd place, Nora Kucera 5th place.
300M hurdles: Allison Sucha 3rd place.
400M: Taylen Stark 1st place.
800M: Taylen Stark 2nd place.
1600M: Taylen Stark 1st place.
3200M: Delani Runnels 1st place.
4x800M Relay (Kaydence Jones, Maura Hoferer, Emmarie Pavlik, Aliyah Yunker) – 3rd place
4x100M Relay (Kaydence Jones, Maura Hoferer, Emmarie Pavlik, Aliyah Yunker) – 6th place
4x400M Relay (Maura Hoferer, Nora Kucera, Kaydence Jones, Chloe Hanzlik) – 5th place
BOYS
High Jump: Arlan Lammers 5th place.
Pole Vault: Wyatt Shabram 4th place.
Discus: Jacob Motacek 2nd place, Isaac Pavlik 5th place.
100M: Kellen Vesely 4th place.
200M: Kellen Vesely 3rd place.
110M hurdles: Wyatt Shabram 2nd place.
300M hurdles: Arlan Lammers 3rd place.
4x100M Relay: (Connor Thomson, Isaac Pavlik, Jacob Motacek, Kellen Vesely) – 6th place
4x400M Relay: (Bryan Coffman, Alex Motacek, Kasen Kazemba, Kellen Vesely) – 5th place
4x800M Relay: Kasen Kazemba, Aiden Henry, Bryan Coffman, Gage Vesely – 5th place
Just missing out on medals…
Alex Motacek – 7th place 400M.
Wyatt Shabram – 7th place high jump.
Emmarie Pavlik – 7th place high jump.
Chloe Hanzlik – 7th place 100M hurdles and 7th place 300M hurdles.
The next track meet will be the Norfolk Classic on Thursday, May 1st. Then, the conference track meet is this Saturday, May 3rd at Rock County High School in Bassett.
Story by Jeff Shabram
