After celebrating graduation on Friday night, the Dexter Track & Field team packed up and headed to Grand Rapids to compete in the State Championships on Saturday at East Kentwood. A smooth trip found the team checked into their hotel by 11pm, and asleep shortly after.
Saturday morning began a bit cool, but quickly warmed up and was sunny before rain set in later in the afternoon. Fortunately for the team, most of their competitions happened prior to the downpour.
Starting the Championships were the field events, as both the boys and girls Pole Vault were the first events of the day. Dexter was well represented for both the boys and the girls, and the top honor of the meet went to Clark Sheldon who finished as Runner-up in the State Championship jumping 14’ 0”, a three place improvement from last season’s 5th place finish. Competing in his first State Championship, teammate Benjamin Sackman cleared 13’ 6” to finish 12th.
Raiden Kipfmiller, last year finishing 9th as a freshman, moved up 3 places herself in this year's Championship to finish the day in 6th with a jump of 11’ 6”. Debbie McCoy, also a placer in last years meet as a freshman, finished in the top 8, with a tie for eighth at 11’ 0”. Senior Lily Burns, Dexter’s top thrower this year, threw just inches off her best to finish the day 14th, with a mark of 37’ 0” in the highly competitive girls Shot Put.
Track events started with both the boys and girls 4x800m Relay where Dexter qualified both of their teams. Leading off was the girls team of Kodie Snyder, Lillian Mitchell, Kate Varitek, and Annabel O’Haver. The team earlier this year set the school record in the event to qualify for the Championship, were a little off that mark on Saturday finishing in 9:43.98. In another highly competitive field, the team finished one spot up from their seeding coming into the race in 19th.
The boys 4x800m Relay team of Caleb Snyder, Vaughn Meyer, Julian Linebaugh, Brandon Anderson were next up. Seeded as the 21st fastest team coming into the race, they improved substantially, finishing in 11th with a time of 7:58.98, roughly 4 seconds faster than their qualifying time.
After putting everything that they had into the relay race, both Anderson and Vaughn competed in the open 1600m run later on, with Vaughn finishing 19th, at 4:23.80, and Anderson 21st with a time of 4:24.70. Anderson also ran in the 800m, but by that time the rain began to fall quite steadily, and the efforts from earlier were taking a toll, finishing 16th with a time of 1:56.25.
Next up, the team will celebrate the season, and each other at their annual awards night on Thursday.
Pole Vault photos courtesy of Bill Sheldon.
For full State Championship results, please visit Dexter Track & Field on Athletic.net.
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