The Eagles eighth grade 4X400 relay team that beat the Meet of Champions record with a time of 3:54.08. Photo (L-R): Kaden Thornsberry, Owen Hoag, Sean Mercado and Wyatt Stout.
Eighth grader Emily Maughan gives it all she had in the 100m for the win. She took first in four of her events and third in the 4X100m relay.
Eighth grader Klayton Kovatch sends the discus flying. He took first place in the event with a throw of 142-4.
Eighth grader Kyla Conley approaches the finish line of the 400-meter. She won the event with a time of 1:04.74 minutes, a new personal record.
Tru Good reaches back for the baton carried by Ava Thornsberry for the first handoff of the 4x100 meter relay. Grace Mercado and Emily Maughan ran the third and fourth legs of the relay and the team took third place with a time of 54.97 seconds.
Aubrey Mathew runs in the 800-meter. She finished the race in 3:01.66 minutes for third place.
Sam Ayers completes the first lap of the 1600-meter. He finished in 6:11.25 minutes for sixth place.
SEELEY LAKE – It was another record-breaking year for the Seeley Lake Elementary Eagles track and field team. Not only was the school record book rewritten in several events, the eighth grade boys 4X400 set a new Meet of Champions (MOC) record May 21. Head coach Brett Haines said it was a successful season with a really strong eighth grade class.
In the past, the Eagles have had close to 50 athletes participate in track and field. This year there were only 30 students that finished the track season, with nearly half of them eighth graders.
"The eighth graders are a bunch of over-achievers and are a good class. A lot of those kids are excelling at a lot of different things. We are going to miss them," said Haines. "We are going to lose a lot of good athletes and half my team."
Prior to the MOC, eighth graders Wyatt Stout, Dani Sexton and Emily Maughan made it into the SLE record book.
Stout broke SLE's 800m record three times this season. His personal record (PR) was at the Zelda Haines Invitational where he ran a 2:17.66. Stout also bumped out Zach Nelson's 1600m record of 5:21 set in 2000 at the MOC with his new PR of 5:07.01 earning him second place.
Sexton set a new PR in the javelin at the MOC with a throw of 102-04. This pushed the SLE record out another nine feet from when she set it the first meet of the season. She missed the MOC of record by a little more than two feet.
Maughan set a new SLE record in the long jump at the April 18 meet. She beat her 15-3 record from 2018, that matched the 2017 record set by Klaire Kovatch, by 2 feet. At the Copper League Qualifier May 10 she furthered it again setting the new school record at 15-9.5. Haines said she was good enough to beat the current MOC record of 16-2 inches but wasn't able to do it that day.
While just short of SLEs 200m record of 27.1, Haines is considering giving it to Maughan for her PR at the MOC of 27.74. If he did, he would retire the current record set by Shelly Nicholson in 1976 because it was a hand-timed, 220 yard dash. The current 200m race is slightly longer and computer timed for better accuracy.
At the MOC, the eighth grade boys 4X400m relay team with Kaden Thornsberry, Owen Hoag, Sean Mercado and Wyatt Stout broke the eighth grade boys 4X400 MOC record by more than two seconds. This was held by Frenchtown and set in 2006. The Eagles now hold the seventh and eighth grade boys and girls MOC records in the 4X400 relays.
Haines said with around 15 elementary schools participating and around 30 years of the MOC being held, "that is a lot of kids that have gone through that system. Anytime we get those Meet of Champion records that is big."
This record came on the heels of Hoag injuring his foot at the Copper League Qualifying Meet May 10 where he missed SLE's 400m record by 0.32 seconds. Despite not training for the two weeks, at the MOC he ran the relay and threw a PR in the discus.
"He healed up and he was able to run," said Haines who wished Hoag could have also gotten the 400m school record but he chose not to run it to focus on the relay. "We wouldn't have beaten the [MOC] record without him."
The relay time of 3:54.08 also set a new SLE 4X400 record breaking Dakota Wood, Caleb Maughan, Avery Smith and Soren Moon's record of 4:01.11 set in 2016. Since Haines has been coaching for the last seven years, they have broken the school record three years in a row and four times total.
Additional highlights from the MOC
The eighth grade girls placed third overall for team score behind Washington and Frenchtown. They took the most firsts for the eighth grade girls with Maughan winning the 100m, 200m and long jump; Kyla Conley taking the 400m; Sexton winning gold in the javelin; and the eighth grade 4X400 relay with Maughan, Conley, Ava Thornsberry and Grace Mercado posting the second fastest time at the MOC.
"We've got 30 athletes total. For our team to take third overall, that is a pretty good showing," said Haines. "We just aren't as deep as some of those other teams."
Maughan competed in five events at the MOC and won four. She beat the defending champion Hannah Moses of Washington Middle School in the 100m by 0.29 seconds. Haines said she had only beat her once in two years and beat her at the MOC to win it.
Eighth grader Klayton Kovatch improved his discus throw all year and came out with the only other first place for the boys at the MOC. He came within five feet of the MOC record throwing a new PR of 142-04.
"My goal as a coach is to get kids to break records. That is where we set our standard," said Haines. "We got some school records again and got one Meet of Champions record. It was a really successful year again and a good bunch of kids."
SLE MOC Results - *Notes Personal Record
Boys
6th Grade Events
• Seth Dunster: 6th – 400m, 1:14.80a; 9th – 800m, 3:14.41a; 4th – 4x100 Relay, 59.42a; 2nd – 4x400 Relay, 4:50.20a
• Sam Ayers: 6th – 1600m, 6:11.25a; 8th – 4x400 Relay, 5:47.11a
• Noah Stone: 4th – 4x100 Relay, 59.42a; 2nd – 4x400 Relay, 4:50.20a
• Tyler Haines: 4th – 4x100 Relay, 59.42a ; 2nd – 4x400 Relay, 4:50.20a; 2nd – Long Jump, 13-11.50*
• Dylan Wilkinson: 4th – 4x100 Relay, 59.42a; 5th – Javelin, 71-11*
• Quinlan McClure: 2nd – 4x400 Relay, 4:50.20a
• Kelten Dunster, John Debernardi & John Dalrymple: 8th – 4x400 Relay, 5:47.11a
8th Grade Events
• Kaden Thornsberry: 2nd – 800m, 2:23.12a*; 1st – 4x400 Relay, 3:54.08a
• Wyatt Stout: 2nd – 1600m, 5:07.01a*; 1st – 4x400 Relay, 3:54.08a
• Johnnie Stout: 4th – Discus, 109-06*; 3rd – Javelin, 128-01*
• Sean Mercado: 1st – 4x400 Relay, 3:54.08a
• Owen Hoag: 1st – 4x400 Relay, 3:54.08a; 6th – Discus, 103-05*
• Klayton Kovatch: 1st – Discus, 142-04*; 3rd – High Jump, 5-04*
Girls
6th Grade Events
• Aubrey Matthew: 3rd – 800m, 3:01.66a; 3rd – 4x400 Relay, 5:17.10a
• Darby Gleason & Olivia Mitchell: 3rd – 4x400 Relay, 5:17.10a
• Rilyn Richardson: 3rd – 4x400 Relay, 5:17.10a; 4th – Javelin, 62-08*; 5th – High Jump, 3-10; 2nd – Triple Jump, 25-02.00
• Bailey Bartlett, Haidyn Bradshaw, Alison Kilpatrick and Amaiya Dalrymple: 5th – 4x400 Relay, 5:19.98a
8th Grade Events
• Emily Maughan: 1st –100m, 13.25a; 1st –200m, 27.74a*; 3rd – 4x100 Relay, 54.97a; 1st – 4x400 Relay, 4:27.04a; 1st – Long Jump, 15-00.75
• Kyla Conley: 1st – 400m, 1:04.74a*; 1st – 4x400 Relay, 4:27.04a; 4th – High Jump, 4-06
• Ava Thornsberry: 2nd – 1600m, 6:00.07a; 3rd – 4x100 Relay, 54.97a; 1st – 4x400 Relay, 4:27.04a
• Tru Good: 3rd – 4x100 Relay, 54.97a
• Grace Mercado: 3rd – 4x100 Relay, 54.97a; 1st – 4x400 Relay, 4:27.04a; 4th – Shot Put, 23-04.50
• Dani Sexton: 4th – Discus, 67-03.50*; 1st – Javelin, 102-04*
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