Track stars find gold at state tourney

By GARY ARRINGTON Sports Writer

After a disappointing region track meet, the Emery High coaches were ecstatic with the performances of both the girls and boys track teams at the Utah state track meet held at BYU. Both teams performed well enough to secure third place in their respective divisions. Coach Todd Jeffs after the meet, “We were disappointed with our effort at the region meet in Richfield but we are elated at how well we performed at this meet and how we stepped up to perform well today.”
The Emery girls won four of 16 events and scored 60.5 points over the two days to finish behind North Summit and region 15 foe Richfield. The Braves scored 95 points and the Wildcats scored 79 points. Beaver and Rowland Hall followed the Lady Spartans.
The Emery boys had a single winner but scored enough points to take third place. Emery scored 44.5 points to nip Manti and San Juan as both of those teams scored 43 points. Richfield won the boys title followed by North Summit.
The final event of the track meet was the girl’s and boys 4 x 400 relay. The boy’s team consisting of David Dyer, Cameron Allred, Scott Jackson and Tyler Pulli finished third and scored enough points to sneak ahead of their close competitors.
The girls relay team of Kelsie Cox, Hannah Dyer, Jessica Guymon and Hailee Rogers pulled off an upset as they beat their previous best time of the season by close to 11 seconds and won the event over defending champion North Summit.
Kelsie ran a strong first leg to keep Emery in the hunt with Hannah running a truly gritty second leg to put Emery solidly in second. Jessica followed with another great performance to keep Emery neck and neck with their competition and then Hailee out kicked the others down the straightaway home to secure the win. It was nice to be there live to watch this race, as the girls were outstanding.
The other race that Emery unexpectedly won was the boy’s 300 hurdles. Brendon Jorgensen, defending champion in this race, had previously raced six or seven times against the competitor from Grand and had lost each of those times but it was not going to happen again today.
Brendon had a great start, stayed with the Grand runner around the turns and then stayed strong going down the home stretch to secure the win. Brendon’s time was 39.90, by far his best time of the season. Brendon also placed sixth in the 110 Hurdles and fifth in the long jump.
For the girl’s team, sophomore Ashlynn Allred, a returning state champion also, won the 100 meter dash in a time of 12.44 and the 200 meter dash in a time of 25.27, a new 2-A state record. Allred also held the previous record. Ashlynn also anchored the 4 x 100 relay team to another gold medal and a first place win. That relay team consisted of Blayr Jeffs, Hailee Rogers, Bayler Griffin and Allred. Freshman Paytn Jeffs had ran with the team most of the year and will be counted on to be a member of the team next year when Allred and Griffin return.
Also scoring points for the Emery girls were Hailee Rogers in the 200 meters and the 400 meters. Rogers finished fourth in the 400 and seventh in the 200. Jessica Guymon threw the javelin just over 110 feet to finish third in the event. Paytn Jeffs finished fifth in the high jump with a jump of 5 foot 1 inch and Kelsie Cox finished eighth in the 300 hurdles.
The girl’s sprint medley relay team consisting of Paytn Jeffs, Bayler Griffin, Hannah Dyer and Jessica Guymon finished sixth in the event.
The boy’s sprint medley relay team of Nick Arizmendi, David Dyer, Scott Jackson and Tyler Pulli ran a 3:48.55 race and finished second to score their first points on Friday.
The 4 x 100 relay team of Dyer, Jorgensen, Jared Shakespeare and Jackson finished seventh as all three of Emery’s relay teams scored for the boys.
Emery had four other Spartans that also scored points to allow the Spartans their third place finish. Taylor Hansen high jumped 5’11” and finished fourth in the event. Curtis Mason had a javelin throw of 141’4.75″ to finish fifth in that event. Pulli finished seventh in the 800 meters and Jackson finished eighth in the 400 meters. Emery needed all these points to secure their team finish.
Congratulations to the Emery athletes for their contributions and to coaches Todd Jeffs and Kevin Reynolds for being there every day. Emery will look to build on this success in the coming seasons.