The St. Vincent track and field team had quite the day at the district track meet Saturday.
The girls took first, and the boys fourth at the Class 1, District 1 meet at Scott City. It is the first time in program history that the St. Vincent girls took first place as a team at the district competition.
“I couldn’t be any more proud of the team,” St. Vincent track coach Angie Hudson said. “The team has worked really hard this season and it’s good to see all that hard work pay off. I don’t give any of the credit to myself, the kids did all the work. The girls wanted it really badly.”
St. Vincent won the meet with 103 points, narrowly beating out St. Paul Lutheran (97 points) and Van Buren (94 points).
The Indians had four first place finishes on the day as Reese Zoellner won the pole vault event (8-00), Claire Otte took first in the javelin (94-10.0), and two relay teams also won as well.
St. Vincent will send the 4x200 team (2.00.98) and the 4x400 team to sectionals (4.48.73)
Other qualifiers for the sectional meet are Payton Unterreiner who took second place in the 400-meter run with a time of 1:05.99 and Abigail Kirn, who took fourth in the 800 meter at 3:01.32.
Aiden Blessing qualified for sectionals in two events as she finished third in the long jump (14-1.0) and fourth in the triple jump (28-11.75).
It didn’t quite hit Hudson that the team could get first until midway through the meet.
“We were just hoping the girls would have a good day and that they would do their best,” Hudson said. “They go into districts knowing that the pressure is on and that it could be the last meet of the year and for the seniors, it’s the last of their careers. I didn’t start thinking about it once I started seeing the results come in and that we could watch the team scores. We knew that we were right there. It was back and forth through the afternoon and ended up coming down to the wire.”
The St. Vincent girls could have had more qualifiers for sectionals as the top four in each event move on as the Indians had six fifth place finishes and another four finish in sixth place.
The boys had a similarly good day, which included a new school record. Jacob Schremp won the javelin event and broke the school record in the process with a throw of 148-6.0. Schremp also finished second in the discus with a distance of 125-7.0.
“Jacob has been on a roll the last few weeks,” Hudson said. “He broke the shot put record at DeSoto and now has the javelin. Discus is his last event and he wants to break the record in that one too.”
Jackson Unterreiner finished second in the 1,600 meter race at 5:03.49, while Ethan Buerck finished third in the 800 meter with a time of 2:16.60, and Ethan Hotop finished fourth in the 3,200 meter at 11:28.01.
The boys will also send four relay teams to sectionals as the 4x200 (1:39.71), 4x400 (3:49.80), and 4x800 (9:19.38) each finished in second place in their respective races. The 4x100 relay team finished in third place with a time of 47.50.
“We had some early successes this year and then we had some illnesses,” Hudson said. “We weren’t sure if the guys would be able to pull it together, but they did.”
The Indians will compete at New Haven in its sectional meet on Saturday.
