The Durango High School track and field team won 14 events at the Piedra Vista Turner Relays in Farmington on Saturday, helping the girls finish first and the boys take second in the team races.
“I think everyone performed really well, and I’m excited for the rest of the season,” said DHS head coach Johnny Bertrand, noting that a lot of the team’s athletes have beat or matched their previous personal records. “The fact that kids are already picking up where they left off last year after just two weeks (of practices) is really promising.”
The Durango girls distance runners had strong performances, grabbing the top four spots in the 800-meter race and the top five spots in the 1,600 and 3,200.
Angela McManus finished first in the 800 in 2 minutes, 27.75 seconds. Sofia Voss finished second (2:30.37), followed by Abby Fehr (2:34.17) and Ashley Forrest (2:38.87).
McManus also won the 1,600 in 5:33.08. Willow Lott crossed second in 5:39.98, followed by Dewa Ilg (5:40.47), Fehr (5:41.21) and Tea Forrest (5:44.80).
Lott ran a 12:07.63 to win the 3,200. Ilg finished second in 12:13.84, Brynn Aggeler crossed third (12:26.89), Tea Forrest finished fourth (12:35.14), and Nina Quayle placed fifth (12:42.64).
“The girls definitely dominated the distance races,” Bertrand said.
The DHS boys won the same three events, but didn’t match the girls’ depth.
Charlie Dillman won the 800 in 2:09.48. Luke Swenk crossed seventh in 2:18.43.
Damian Fausto won the 1,600 in 4:29.40, five seconds ahead of teammate Land Lambert in second. Frausto also won the 3,200 in 9:47.06. Nathaniel Ellis crossed fourth in the 3,200 (10:42.89) and sixth in the 1,600 (4:52.11).
Sydney Flores scored wins in both the discus (103 feet, 10 inches) and the shot put (33-1.75).
Will Knight won the same two events for the Demon boys with throws of 155-11 in the discus and 48-7 in the shot put. His discus toss was a personal record and was the meet’s only result that met a Milesplit.com “elite performance” standard. Joshua Bates finished second in the discus (139-1) and third in the shot put (42-10).
Halle Moore almost matched her personal record in the pole vault with a winning leap of 9 feet, 6 inches.
DHS didn’t run in many relays since Bertrand said he was trying to get open times for everyone, but the Demons won the three relays they did compete in. The girls won the 4x400 in 4:22.75 and the 4x800 in 10:46.06 while the boys won the 4x800 in 9:08.12.
The coach also said sprinter Landon Roberts “ran really well” with personal records in the 100, 200 and 400. Roberts crossed second in the 400 in 51.75 while teammate Jaxon Fancher finished fourth in 52.81.
Roberts also placed fifth in the 200 (23.85) and seventh in the 100 (11.84).
Mason Turner led the DHS girls in the 100, placing fifth in 13.70. Avery Cerwin led the girls in the 200 (eighth, 30.15) and the 400 (second, 1:04.92).
Jessica McVaugh was the team’s top hurdler, placing sixth in the 100-meter hurdles (18.92) and fifth in the 300 hurdles (56.48). Keaton Roof crossed sixth in 1:00.51.
Naomi Smith cleared 4-2 in the high jump to place eighth.
Micah Zastrocky led the DHS over the hurdles, placing fifth in the 110 hurdles (19.12) and seventh in the 300 hurdles (48.85). Zastrocky also had the team’s best high jump, 5-6, to place sixth.
Allan Hardee leapt 18-11 to finish second in the long jump.
Jacob Fenberg cleared 8-6 to place fifth in the pole vault.
The team has roughly 90 athletes this year, and in some events had about 15 different kids competing in Farmington.
“We have a good size team,” Bertrand said. “We have a lot of young kids and a lot of freshmen came out.”
DHS will next run at Bayfield on Friday. The team will run in Arizona the following week and then return to Bayfield April 2.
DHS will host its annual Ron Keller Invitational on April 23 and the Southwest League championships on May 6.
“It’s always our goal to win the league,” Bertrand said. “Once we get to work on our technique, I think we’ll have a really good team this year.”
