Buckaroos qualify eight for state with strong effort at Carbon Invitational

Recap by Jessica Walker
Contributing Writer
The Monticello High School track and field team was in Price for the Carbon Invitational on Friday, March 25. It was a meet full of state-qualifying performances for the Buckaroos with eight athletes posting qualifying results – no small feat.
Leading the Buckaroos, Tommy Sheeran won the long jump decisively. With a jump over half a foot farther than his nearest competitor, Sheeran’s first-place finish racked up ten points for the team.
Also contributing to his team’s points was fellow long jumper, Robert Morrison, who posted an eighth-place finish.
Lily Long scored nearly half of the points for the girls team with a trio of great performances. Long placed third in the 3200 meter, fifth in the 1600 meter, and sixth in the 800 meter, earning the Bucks 13 points.
Several other athletes had remarkable performances. Sadie Adair hurdled her way to a top performance and a season best when she took fourth in the 100 meter hurdles.
Berlynn Black’s high jump secured her fifth place. Both Kyleigh Adair’s effort in the shot put and Taylor Lewis’s run in the 100 meter gave them seventh-place finishes.
Other top-ten performances include: Saydi Young (tenth in the high jump), Curtis Bunker (ninth in the 3200), Boston Freestone (tenth in the high jump, tenth in the 400 meter), and Berlynn Black (ninth in the 300 meter hurdles).
The Buckaroos are headed to St. George this Saturday, April 2 for the Desert Hills Invitational.
After the Carbon Invite, 18-year Monticello Head Coach Jeff Hunt reflected on the season to this point and shared his comments with the San Juan Record via email:
“The word for the young season is youth. Right now we only have one senior boy and three senior girls. In contrast to last year when the boys finished second in 2A, we were loaded with seniors.
“Youth need time to grow and develop, so I expect we will be going through some growing pains as the season goes, but I also think there will be a lot of improvement.
“Two athletes who have made the biggest strides since last year are two who missed most or all of last season due to injury. Junior Tommy Sheeran has already qualified for the state meet in the long jump and 100 meter.
“Senior Taylor Lewis has qualified in the 100 meter and led the girls medley relay to a state qualifying time with Rosy Beh, Lily Long, and Lilly Burton.
“There are a lot of team leaders who have shown up and worked every day. I really like how a different person will step up and lead the team in warmups nearly every day and they have done a good job of helping everyone get involved.
“For the boys, the jumpers and sprinters have looked good early.  Boston Freestone (high jump, 400m), Tommy Sheeran (long jump, 100m) and Robert Morrison (long jump) have led the team in points and have put forth qualifying marks.
“For the girls, Lily Long has only been to one meet but already has four state-qualifying marks and looks to be a top contender at the state meet in the distance events.
“Taylor Lewis (sprints), Lily Burton (middle distance), Sadie Adiar (hurdles), Berlynn Black (hurdles, jumps), Saydie Young (jumps) and Kyleigh Adair (throws) have looked good early in very competitive meets and they have a great supporting cast in one of the deepest girls teams that we have had in a while.
“Our young athletes need to improve quickly in order to have an impact at the state meet. [Indeed] one of our goals this year [for the whole team] has to be to consistently improve. We need to always be looking at how to get better and working to get there.
“Our next goal is to win our region. If we can win our region, we should get numbers to the state meet. If you can get numbers to state then you can make some noise at the state meet.
“The first three meets of this season were very large and very competitive, especially the two at Carbon. The first meet there, we only had about a third of the team because of spring break.
“So the second Carbon meet we fared much better as the majority of the team competed.  As we get into the heart of the season, you should see us get much more competitive, especially against 1A competition.”

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