Wildcats Excel and Head to State Meet!
Sometimes the field part of the sport of track and field gets relegated to second class citizenship, but for the Wildcat Girls’ Track and FIELD team, the field events have been a strong point all year long, and that was very evident at the IHSA Sectional meet this week. Our girls’ field team was stronger than any other team’s field event group. We had great success, and now these girls head to Eastern Illinois University to compete against the best in the state at the IHSA State Meet. Senior Kayla Bushey got things started in the triple by jumping her 6 best jumps of the year. Her second jump of 34′ 4″ was better than the automatic state qualifying mark of 33′ 6″, which guaranteed her spot next week at the state meet. She had 4 other jumps in the 33′ range as she easily took first place. Our discus girls were up next; Kate VanTilburg had to come up with a good throw in the finals, and she did, throwing 86′ 10″, which tied her for first place, but she won the event because of having a better 2nd throw. Kate gets to now throw the discus next week at state. Freshman Ariel Shumaker PRed in the discus with a toss of 81′, which means she will be a force next year in this event. But Ariel’s turn came next in the shot put, as she unleashed her best throw of the year, letting out a scream and a put of 34′ 10″, which easily led her to win the event and secure her spot in the state meet. Kayla then came back and took 2nd place in the long jump (15′ 11″) with her best jump of the season. Our team led the team scores after field events due to these successes. While none of the running events qualified for state, we did get places in the 4×4 relay (Natalie Mendez, Fancy Sexton, Brandi Corral, Kathy Hoffmann) (5th), Jennifer Kurtz ran a new PR in the hurdles and took 5th, and Kayla took a 5th in the 400m dash. We also got Personal Record performances from Brandi in the 200m dash, and most of our relay athletes had season best times. All in all, a great meet for the Wildcats!
