The Hopkins girls’ track team will have to settle for an O-K Silver Conference co-championship this year.
The Lady Vikings came into the league meet Friday leading the pack of seven teams, undefeated in six dual meets. However, Belding, a perennial power in the sport, rebounded from its loss to Hopkins earlier this spring to take first in the league tournament and force the tie.
The Belding girls scored 153 points on their own turf, Hopkins checked in with 128 and Grandville Calvin Christian 96.
The Viking boys finished just about where they figured they would. After finishing the dual meet season with a 4-2 record, they took third in the Silver meet with 93 points, behind Calvin Christian’s 125 and Belding’s 102.
Sophomore Laura Velderman and junior Meghan Schulz both were double winners in individual events for the Lady Vikings. Velderman captured the open 400-meter run in a season-best 60.93 seconds and the 800 in 2:29.54, only four-hundredths of a second ahead of Calvin Christian’s Haley Weesies.
Schulz continued her assault on the shot put with a first and personal-best 36-8 and came back to take the discus with a 101-0. Teammate Shannon Henshaw was second.
Other individual winners were sophomore Jasmine Fisher in the 1600 with a time of 5:33.92 and she was runner-up in the 3200; junior sprinter Brittney Houseman in the 100-meter dash at 13.12 seconds and she was second in the 200, and the 1600-meter relay team of Cassidy Finney, Gracie DeZeeuw, Madeline Krcatovich and Velderman in 4:26.10, almost eight seconds faster than all other quartets in the race.
But it was perhaps the relays where Hopkins lost a lot of ground. The Lady Vikings were dominant all season long in the four relays, but Friday only managed one first.
Hopkins also did not score as many points in the other field events and Belding dominated the hurdles.
The Vikings boys performed well in the distance races, with sophomore Dan Rausch winning the open 800 in 2:10.11, just a tenth of a second ahead of Zack Hoekstra of Calvin Christian while Jacob Pastoor was third.
Freshman Todd Henley was runner-up in the 1600 and Pastoor third and he was second in the 3200. Logan Blank was second in the 110-meter hurdles, Nathan Roberts third in the shot, and Rausch third in the 400.
Two relay teams were runners-up, including Hunter Lewellyn, Nick Belka, Brandon DeGroot and Rausch in the 1600 and Belka, Pastorr, DeGroot and Rausch in the 3200.
