Bulldog track competes in Lauren Wheeler Relays at Stockton

by Brian Goatley

On Thursday, April 6, the El Dorado Springs high school track team traveled to Stockton for the Lauren Wheeler Relays. This meet is named in honor of Lauren Wheeler, a former student at Stockton, who tragically passed due to a tragic car accident back in 2008. Lauren was active in various activities at school, along with being on the volleyball, basketball and track teams. Stockton has named this track meet after her to pay tribute to Lauren and her drive toward excellence. Her life was cut short, but her spirit and memories live on.

On the girls side, Ashley Knoll was 2nd in both the 1600 and 3200 races with times of 5:53 and 12:50 respectively. Emily Sutton placed 6th in the 800 meter run with a time of 3:08. Brittany Stevens placed 2nd in the high jump with a jump of 4’4”. Hailey McGatha finished out the scoring for the ElDo girls placing 6th in the shot put with a throw of 27’ 6.5”.

On the boys side, Tyler Goatley scored a pair of wins in the 1600 and 3200 meter runs. He ran a time of 4:47 in the 1600 and followed that up with a school record breaking run of 10:07 in the 3200, breaking a 48 year old record. He has had his eyes set on the record since last year, and figured to break it this year, just didn’t realize that it would happen this soon as he ran the last mile by himself. Brendon Parshall ran the first open 200 of his career and won the race in a time of 23.92. Brendon also went on to finish 6th in the high jump before anchoring the boys sprint relays.

The boys 4 x 100 relay consisting of Keilan Jacques, Shelby McKinney, Dylan Gallette and Brendon Parshall, placed 2nd with a season best time of 48.4. The 4 x 200 relay, consisting of Keilan, Tyler, Dylan, and Brendon placed 4th with a time of 1:44.52, despite a couple of botched handoffs. Ethan Parshall placed 3rd in the pole vault, with a personal best tieing jump of 10’6”. Shelby McKinney finished off the scoring for the boys, placing 4th in the shot put with a personal best throw of 38’4”, 3rd in the discus with a throw of 116’8.5” and 1st in the javelin with a school record breaking throw of 133’5”. The boys team finished 3rd out of 14 teams.

Overall, this was the best the teams have performed this year. Everyone is working hard and it really showed during this meet. The athletes are showing great improvements. Before this comes out, we will have hosted our home meet on Tuesday, April 11. Results from that will be in next week’s edition. We also head to Pittsburg State University high school invite this Friday, April 14.