Mounties have big numbers for title defense
Posted on Thursday, May 8, 2008
BENTONVILLE - Good thing the Class 7 A state track meet is right down the road.
That'll make travel plans for a big Rogers boys team a lot easier for coach Jay Miles.
The defending state champion Mounties have 16 athletes and all three relays qualified for the state meet - scheduled for next week at the University of Arkansas' McDonnell Field.
"I feel like I'm bringing my whole team," Miles said after the Mounties won the 7 A-West Conference title Tuesday in Van Buren. "It's pretty close. Numbers help. It takes number to win a track meet. "The Mounties scored points in every event at the conference meet and will be represented in all but one event at the state meet. Zac Lane (shot put ), Michael Tibbs (discus, 110-meter hurdles ) and Austin Young (300-meter hurdles ) and the 3, 200-meter and 1, 600-meter relays all posted wins in Van Buren. They have five athletes qualified in at least three individual events and at least three runners in four events - 800, 1, 600, 3, 200 and 110-meter hurdles.
With that kind of balance, anything is possible for the Mounties, who are looking to finish the high school triple crown. Points will be hard to come by at the state meet, especially for sprint athletes competing in multiple preliminaries and finals all in the same day. But the Mounties expect to again lean on their strength and depth in the distance races. "When you take numbers for the state meet, things change," Miles said. "But distance does tend to stay pretty consistent."
• • • The Bentonville Lady Tigers, backto-back conference champs, will also have a big team as they look to repeat at state.
The Lady Tigers have 14 athletes qualified and all three relays.
The Lady Tigers relied on their distance team to help run away with the meet but got 40 points from the field events.
Senior Kasey O'Connor won the pole vault for the second year in a row and senior Samantha Devlin scored in both the shot put and discus.
Those points and a busy day by junior Jeanna Sheppard and senior Kayla Middlebrook got Bentonville an early lead Tuesday.
Sheppard scored in all four of her events - winning the 100-meter hurdles, taking second in the 300-meter hurdles and qualifying for state in the 100 and 200.
Middlebrook repeated at league champ in the 400 and placed in the 100 (third ) and 200 (second ).
Katie Dalton, Shannon Sullivan and Mackenzie Bloom are all qualified in two distance races, giving the Lady Tigers plenty of options next week.
"I'm not exactly sure we'll use exactly what we set up this meet for the state meet because it's two different meets," coach Randy Ramaker said. "But we definitely gave ourselves lot of opportunities to move around. Having those kids do multiple events and still have enough quality to do some relays does help the team aspect of scoring points."
• • • Tibbs competed in four events Tuesday - all at basically the same time. But the junior decathlete came out of it with two wins and a second-place finish for the Mounties. Tibbs rotated through his turns at the three field events - long jump, discus and pole vault - and the 110-meter hurdles were the first running event of the day. "My day is always early and always ends early," he said. "Since all the events go on at the same time, it's hectic. It's tough but as a decathlete I do all that stuff. "Miles said he had trouble keeping up with Tibbs, who finished ninth at last year's high school decathlon, during all those events.
"My head's never been spun that fast," Miles said. "We're running from long jump over to pole vault and then running over to discus."
Tibbs had a personal-best time in the hurdles, easily won the discus and took second in the pole vault for big points as the Mounties tried to keep pace with Fayetteville early.
"We needed a strong performance in the field events and sprints so we take off some pressure (the team )," Tibbs said. "I think we did well.
"We've been working hard all year towards it. We were just trying to get our points in the sprints and the field events and we know our distance (crew ) would get the work done."
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