Track team opens at Pineview and Alpha Invitationals
Apr 06, 2023 12:52PM ● By Liisa London Mecham
Jake Carter took second in the long jump at the Alpha Invitational. Photos by Brennan Fuller
The boys’ and girls’ track teams,coached by Brennen Fuller and Bryan Weir, competed in the Pineview Invitational March 24-25 in St. George and in the Alpha Invitational at Timpanogos High School in Orem Saturday, April 1. Although they haven’t been able to practice outside a lot, Coach Fuller is pleased with his teams’ accomplishments thus far in the season. “The team's performance at the Alpha Invitational was a big success!,” he shared. “In fact, in the two meets we've been able to have this year, we have qualified 23 individual athletes and three relays for state already. Even though it’s really early, and we haven't seen everyone yet, this is a great start to the season. We have 43 athletes ranked in the top 10 in 3A!”
Fuller added, “A pretty big highlight from the Alpha Invitational was Jake Carter’s long jump of 22 feet 4.25 inches! He broke the meet record for a few seconds until the next jumper then beat him. He’s knocking on the school record of 22’ 6”.”
“At the Pineview Invitational, Brogan Garrett broke the school 200m record, and Tucker Giles is .2 away from the 800 record,” Fuller continued to explain.
Amaya Rogers joined Carter in placing second at the Alpha Invitational. Rogers earned second in the javelin with a toss of 101-00. Gavin DeWitt earned fourth place in the javelin (145-01-5) while Garrett claimed fourth in the high jump (6-02.00) and Tate Nelson (5-10.00) tenth in high jump. In the girls’ high jump, Abby Titus claimed fifth with a jump of 5-00.00 while Grace Thomsen’s 4-10 mark placed her tenth. In the 800m race, Grace Gordon raced to an eighth-place finish (2:23.20) while Tucker Giles claimed eighth in the 400m (51:21).
The boys’ medley relay earned top honors with a first place finish (3:37.92) at the Pineview Invitational, and the boys’ team placed fourth overall behind two 6A schools, Corner Canyon and Herriman, and one 4A school, Snow Canyon. Garrett and Carter earned second place finishes in the 200m (22.29) and long jump (21-11.00) respectively. Claiming fourth place honors were Abby Titus (5-01.00) in the high jump and Shaun Moore (46-08.00) in the shot put. Garrett took fifth in the 400 m (49.36) as did the boys 4x100 relay (44.72), the girls 4x800 relay (10:08.91), and DeWitt (154-00) in the javelin. Rhett Nye placed eighth in the javelin (147-07.00). Other top ten finishers were Grace Gordon (59.37) sixth place in the 400m race, Tucker Giles (1:57.97) eighth place in the 800m race, the girls’ 4x100 team in 9th (52.08), and Lucy Tripp (26.52) ninth place in the 200 meter dash.
The track team is hopeful that they can be out on the track running next week after Spring Break, so they can continue to prepare for the remainder of the season. April 22 Morgan will host the Morgan Invitational with over 25 teams descending on Morgan for this annual track meet.
Before Morgan hosts their invitational, they will travel to Ogden and Logan for meets. On April 7-8, qualifying members of the team will travel to Arcadia, California for the Arcadia Invitational. Fuller commented, “This next week we head to Arcadia, California with our medley team of Jake Carter, Jimmy Savage, Brogan Garrett, and Tucker Giles, who are in the Invitational section and competing to break our record and win. Brogan and Grace Gordon will also be racing the 400m as two of the fastest 400ers in the state of Utah!” λ
