FREMONT COUNTY – Middle school track is not always on everybody’s radar during the spring season filled with soccer, softball, baseball and high school track meets. But the middle school conference championships took place this weekend, with one of the biggest meets taking place in Fremont County.
First, in Shoshoni, the Big Horn Basin Conference Championships took place with the Wranglers taking on conference opponents like Burlington, Greybull and Meeteetse at home.
The home team had some great results throughout both seventh and eighth grade girls and boys, especially with finishes like the eighth-grade boys’ 800-meter sprint medley relay (2:00.03). There was also the seventh grader Sky Amos who threw a first-place toss in the discus throw (96’ 2”) which he took by less than one foot. Amos also took second in the seventh-grade shot put event (29’ 5”).
Shoshoni also had a good first-place finish thanks to the eighth-grader Memphis Dolcater thanks to her 400-meter dash time of 1:09.57. The girls weren’t done there though as eighth-grader Alexis Bacon (3:11.16) and seventh-grader Alyssa Good (6:26.64) took first in the 800-meter and 1600-meter runs, respectively
Shoshoni eighth-grader Brody Koch placed in the top three in both the 200- and 100-meter hurdle races on his home track. (photo by Amy Hoyt)
Lady Wranglers also excelled in the hurdling races thanks to seventh-grader Addie Mason (33.88 seconds) and eighth-grader Madison Mills (37.28) who both placed first in their respective 200-meter hurdles races. Mason also went on to take first in the seventh-grade long jump (13’11”).
The seventh-grade girls also have another first-place finish with Shoshoni’s Maddi Marshall in the triple jump (27’04”) who won by just under two inches.
At the end of the day Shoshoni didn’t end up with the most team points, falling to Rocky Mountain Middle School in three of the four divisions (eighth-grade girls and boys, seventh-grade boys) with Greybull (132) finishing just ahead of Shoshoni (119) in the seventh-grade girls’ division.
Meanwhile, up in Thermopolis, Riverton Middle School (RMS) and Lander Valley Middle School (LVMS) took on the likes of Cody, Lovell, Powell, Worland and the home team Bobcats and Lady Bobcats of Hot Springs County.
The meet pinned those schools’ sixth, seventh and eighth graders against each other for the right to call themselves Yellowstone Conference Champions.
Lander’s sixth graders had the best day based off team rankings, finishing first in the boys’ with 130 points and second in the girls’ with (103). The boys had runners like Pruitt Weaver (2:43.05) and Nathan Morgan (2:50.71) who took first and second, respectively, in the 800-meter finals. Morgan also took first in the 1600-meter run with a time of 6:17.88, fifteen seconds faster than the next-best time (6:32.92).
The LVMS sixth-grade girls kept with the grain that the boys made with finishes like Mckenna Clancy’s first-place times in the 100-meter dash (14.62 seconds) and in the 200-meter dash (30.69).
The Sabers’ sixth-graders also took first in the 4×100-meter relay with the only sub-one minute time (58.33 seconds), just two seconds ahead of Riverton’s sixth graders (1:00.99). LVMS also saw their sixth grader Wyatt day take first in the long jump with a leap of 15 feet, just a few inches away from the Sabers’ all-time record (15’ 6.25”). Lander’s sixth-grade girls ended the day by grabbing first in the same relay as the boys with a time of 1:00.28.
Riverton’s sixth graders had some strong showings as well with first-place finishes like Lawson Yeates’ 36.55 second time in the 200-meter hurdles and 20.09 second time in the 100-meter hurdles.
Outside of the Riverton sixth-grade girls the best finish was from the seventh-grade girls who totaled up 85 points, good for fourth place right behind Lovell (90.5). That was due to results like Sawyer Arnhold’s first-place times in the 100-meter dash (13.38 seconds) and the 200-meter dash (28.92). Arnhold also took first in the long jump (15’ 9”) alongside Peyton Arnhold who placed second (14’ 3.5”).
The field events were a good place for the RMS seventh-grade girls, not just for the Arnholds but also for the Lady Spartans’ Halli Weber who finished on the top in the discus throw (76’) and in the shot put (27’ 3”).
Other first-place performances from Fremont County include Lander’s eighth-grade standout and multi-sport athlete Paisley Hollingshead springing three inches further than anyone in the long jump (15’ 11.75”). Hollingshead not only dominated those two events, but she was nearly two seconds faster than anyone else in the eighth-grade 200-meter hurdles (30.78 seconds) and six-tenths of a second faster than anyone in the 100-meter hurdles (16.36). .
LVMS added on a 4×400-meter relay win in with their seventh-grade girls (4:47.73), their eighth-grade 800-meter sprint medley team (2:03.38) and eighth-grader Daisy Goklish’s 2:36.13 finish in the 800-meter run.
With all these first-place finishes it’s easy to see that the county is in good hands for the future as far as Riverton’s and Lander’s high schools are concerned. Add in the multitude of second and third-place finishes and there is no second guessing that Fremont County is prepared for the next four to six years.
(Note: The results from the Middle School Conference Championships in Pavillion is not available at the time of print, stay tuned to WyoToday.com for a recap of that meet as soon as it is available)
