Saturday, April 30, 2022
ALTOONA-MIDWAY MIDDLE SCHOOL TRACK
What a busy week for the Altoona-Midway Middle School track team.
The boys and girl thinclads of the AMMS squad should sleep well this weekend, after they participated in track meets on three consecutive days during the past week.
“Due to a make-up being rescheduled for Wednesday, we had invitationals on three straight days,” noted Chary Weilert, head coach for the AMMS team. “That’s a lot of ask of middle school athletes, but the kids gave good effort the entire week, and still came up with some good results – even on Thursday.
“I was very proud of them, and now hopefully they will rest and recover over the weekend, and be ready to give it their all at the Mineral Belt League meet Monday at Altamont,” Weilert added.
Altoona-Midway traveled to the Flinthills Invitational on Tuesday, the Yates Center Invitational on Wednesday, and the Oswego Invitational on Thursday.
Here is a roundup of AMMS results for each event:
Flinthills Invitational
The Jets compiled 16 points in seventh grade and seven points in eighth grade, while the seventh and eighth grade Lady Jets finished with 17 and 11 points, respectively, in this rugged invitational.
The top finish was the Lady Jets seventh grade 4x200 relay squad, which captured the gold medal. Members of that relay were Harmony McFarland, Peyton Drake, Hadlee Pupanek, and Sandra Morales.
Other Jets and Lady Jets placing in the top six and earning points Tuesday were:
8th Grade Division: Kage Beck, sixth in the long jump, tied for sixth in the high jump, and fifth in the 200; Abby Relph, third in long jump, fourth in the 200, and sixth in the 100; Braxton Wittlake, fourth in the shot put; Eryn Tiger, fifth in the discus.
7th Grade Division: Mika Parsons, sixth in long jump, sixth in discus, and sixth in shot put; Chance Carter, third in discus and sixth in shot put; third in the shot put and fifth in the discus; Hadlee Pupanek, fourth in shot put; and Peyton Drake, fifth in the high jump.
“The long jumpers had a great night last night. The jumpers have been working with Coach Almond a lot this past week and it showed,” Weilert said. “Their approaches were spot-on. It was nice to see them hit the board consistently and focus on their jump technique instead of worrying about whether or not they were going to scratch. Even though not all of them placed in the top six, five out of the six jumpers set new PR's.”
Cedar Vale/Dexter captured team titles in both 8th grade boys and 7th grade girls divisions. Flinthills nipped Bluestem to win the 7th grade boys crown, while the two schools flip-flopped the top two spots in the 8th grade girls’ competition.
Yates Center Invitational
Braxton Wittlake had the top individual finish for the Jets at Yates Center, placing second in the 8th grade shot put with a toss of 33-5.
“I was heart-broken for Braxton, who sprained his ankle in PE,” Weilert said. “He had focused a lot of his practice time on his discus technique, and unfortunately his ankle was just too sore to go full throttle. But he was bound and determined to compete this week, and that showed a lot of heart.”
The shot put also had a little controversy for the Jets, as Chance Carter and Taj O’Connor “officially” placed fourth and sixth, respectively, for the seventh grade boys.
“There was some question about whether the results got mixed up for these two,” Weilert said. “The consensus seemed to be that Taj actually beat Chance – but the consensus is unofficial.”