The Wayland girls’ vars
ity track team finished sixth in the O-K Gold Conference track meet Saturday at Houseman Field in Grand Rapids.
The performance really wasn’t shabby, considering that the O-K Gold has four of the top Division 2 girls’ track teams in the state in Forest Hills Eastern, East Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids Christian, Middleville Thornapple Kellogg and fifth place team South Christian always is very competitive. Wayland scored 42 points and finished ahead of Wyoming.
The Wildcats managed to bring home some nice hardware with several of our girls earning hardware.
Maggie Whitney was conference champion in the open 800-meter run and her time of 2:22.75 was six seconds faster than anyone else in the race. She took third in the 400 with a personal record 61.87 seconds, earning “All-Conference” status with her overwhelming victory in the 800.
Freshman Corrina Courser overcame hurdles to finish third in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles with a personal best time of 49.03 seconds. She wiped out in the 100-meter high hurdles and suffered a wrist injury, but she came back for her third in the 300 hurdles and eighth in the 200 dash.
Two relay teams, the 1600 and the 3200, both turned in fourth-place finishes. The 1600 included Whitney, Hannah Rybiski, Abbie Hasse and Courser and the 3200 quartet consisted of Zoe Antel, Hasse, Rylee Cronkright and Whitney checked in with a season best time in 10:34.66.
In the discus, the senior trio of Mckenna Dutkiewicz (PR 85’08”), Captain Elizabeth Barnes and Hannah Rybiski (PR 81’11”) took fourth, seventh, and eighth place. The 4 x 200 team posted members their best time of the season, taking sixth with Kali Klein, Jessica Hortman, Brittany Ludwig and Khylea Wells.
“The heat of the day happened to come on around the start of the 3200 race for the girls,” coach Ray Antel said. “Rylee Cronkright worked her way through the pack and passed two girls in the last 300 meters to claim the seventh place medal.”
The Wildcats travel to Comstock Monday to compete in Colts’ Invitational before traveling back to Houseman Field for the regionals next weekend.