Relays put home team in the limelight
Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008
BENTONVILLE - The Bentonville track teams hope to make the most of their lone home meet.
Track coaches Randy Ramaker and Rick Rachel will make sure everyone gets a taste of the limelight during the third annual Tiger Relays at Bentonville's Tiger Track Complex.
The field events are schedule to start at 4 p.m. today and the running events will start at 4: 30.
"It's our home meet, so we'll let everyone get a chance to run," Ramaker said. "It'll be fun from that standpoint. Everyone on our team is going to compete."
The Tigers and Lady Tigers have more than 90 total athletes and all will get a chance to compete in front of the home crowd.
"It'll be a chance for us to put everybody on the track at one time, so I'm excited about that," Rachel said. "Regardless of what happens in the meet, we're going to get to compete."
But make no mistake about it. The Tigers and Lady Tigers are looking for wins today.
It's been two weeks since the Lady Tigers ran away with the team title at the Joe Roberts Invitational at Springdale.
"We just want to have another solid meet," Ramaker said. "There's not going to be anything fancy about it. We're just going to load up and run. We're not going to overtax anybody. "The Lady Tigers will get a good look at 7 A-West Conference schools Fayetteville Har-Ber and Springdale, who are scheduled to attend. Some smaller schools - including the Eureka Springs boys - will also run today. Van Buren is also hosting a meet today and several of the 7 A-West schools, including Rogers, will run there. "Fayetteville will be relatively strong in the sprint and field event areas, so it'll be nice to see how the girls compete against them," Ramaker said. "We're trying to build up some points in those areas. "
Senior Kayla Middlebrook leads that group of sprinters for Bentonville. She won three events - 100, 200 and 400 - at the Springdale meet.
The Lady Tigers will also try to continue scoring points in the field events after a strong outing two weeks ago.
Seniors Ashleigh Eddeelbuttel and Samantha Devlin won the shot put and discus, respectively, and the Lady Tigers got points in the triple jump and high jumps.
Senior Kasey O'Connor added a win in the pole vault.
Middlebrook and O'Connor have already qualified for the state meet.
Middlebrook, the defending conference champ in the 400, qualified for the 200 during the Springdale meet. O'Connor is the defending conference champ in the pole vault and is already qualified for that event.
Junior Katie Dalton - part of the Layd Tigers' strong distance crew - qualified in the 3, 200 during the Springdale meet.
"We're rolling through (get qualifying times )," Ramaker said. "Qualifying is more of a chess game with distance people than sprints because you can't expect to run a quality mile, two-mile and 800 in the same day. It's a game we play through the first two or three meets to make sure that we get a solid race here or there."
The Tigers will play the same game today.
The Tigers don't have anyone qualified yet but Rachel said senior Stephon Ferriel and sophomore Scott Compton are getting close in their events.
Ferriel, the defending state champ in the 800, ran a 2: 00. 38 at the Springdale meet and is one second away from the qualifying mark.
Compton, who ran a 4: 36 in the 1, 600 earlier this season, could also get down to his mark today.
"If weather is right, they can get it," Rachel said.
The Tigers, who finished second overall at the Robert Invitational, won two relays and three individual events two weeks ago.
Ferriel (800 ), sophomore Tyler Trudo (triple jump ) and senior Alex Held (400 ) won their events.
The Tigers' 3, 200-meter relay and 1, 600-meter relay teams also picked up wins.
"We were in pretty good shape before spring break," Rachel said. "We haven't put our whole team together yet. We've run a lot of different kids. We've pretty good depth this year."
The depth shows itself in the running events.
Steele Sikes and Nathan Hughes are strong in the springs while Ferriel, Compton, Held and Rodney Sassee can score in the longer events.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
