Buckaroos take third in Blanding, seventh in Salina
by Rhett Sifford
Sports Editor
For a team that hasn’t even been able to set foot on their home track yet this season due to snow, the Monticello High School track and field team had a pretty impressive showing the San Juan County Invitational this past Wednesday, March 29 in Blanding.
The boys team scored a solid 145 points, finishing second to San Juan, while the girls team collected 116 points to finish third. Combined, the teams scored 259 total points to come home third behind San Juan and Grand County.
No less than eight Buckaroos claimed individual event victories, with a combined relay team winning another. In the boys discus junior Nial Reay crushed the competition with a throw of 122 feet, two-and-a-half inches, winning the event by over 30 feet.
Robert Morrison won the javelin competition with a throw of 141-02. Senior long-jump master Tommy Sheeran claimed yet another victory, jumping 20-06.50.
Jesse Pettit won the boys 800-meter race with a time of 2:24.54. Soren Welch won the 400 meter. And the boys sprint medley relay team won with a time of 4:09.69.
On the girls side, Marah Long won the 1600 meter with a time of 6:55.16. In fact, the Buckaroo girls swept the top four in that event with Lilli Burton taking second, Ayla Carling finishing third, and Alexis Bailey coming home fourth.
Carling also won the 3200 meter in 15:11.63, and Berlynn Black jumped four feet, ten inches to take the high jump event for the girls.
Thirty more Buckaroos scored points at the event, but we’ll just focus on those who finished in the top three. Curtis Bunker snagged a couple of second-place finishes for the boys, in the 1600 and 3200.
Robert Morrison’s long jump of 20-03.75 was good enough for second place. Shayla Pehrson brought home a second-place medal for the girls in the 300-meter hurdles.
Berlynn Black secured a runner-up finish with a nice 14-02 effort in the long jump. And the girls sprint medley relay team finished second with a time of 5:15.40.
The girls brought home a third-place medal in the 4x100 with a solid 59.18. And Marah Long got third in the 800-meter race with a 2:59.01.
For the boys, Kaden Pehrson was third in the 800 and 3200. Nial Reay got a pair of third-place finishes in the 100 meter and shot put.
Chandler Henderson was third in the 300-meter hurdles, Jesse Pettit took third in the 1600, and Donovan Atwood had a nice throw of 87-11 to finish third in the discus competition.
Following the nice performance in Blanding, Monticello hit the road for Salina to compete in the North Sevier Invitational on Saturday, April 1.
The boys scored 58 points to finish fifth at that event, with the girls adding 15 for a ninth-place result. Combined, the teams scored 73 and came home seventh.
Robert Morrison had quite the day for the Buckaroos, scoring 21 points. Curtis Bunker was right behind with 19. Berlynn Black led the girls with 14 points on the day.
Black had the only individual win at the the North Sevier Invite, taking the high jump by clearing the five-foot mark. She got fifth in the long jump with a 14-06.25. Rosy Beh rounded out the girls scoring with an eighth-place finish in the 400-meter race.
In the absence of Tommy Sheeran, Robert Morrison led the way for the Buckaroos in the long jump with a nice 20-04 to finish second.
He was third in the javelin with a 144-04, fourth in the shot put with a 38-08, and seventh in the 200 meter with a 25.05.
Curtis Bunker collected three fourth-place finishes worth five points each for his team, in the 110 hurdles, 300 hurdles, and 3200. He added a fifth-place performance in the 1600 for four more points.
Jesse Pettit was fourth in the 1600, fifth in the 800, and sixth in the 3200. Donovan Atwood got sixth in the shot put, Tavon Black was seventh in the 110 hurdles, and Chandler Henderson came home eighth in the 300 hurdles.
Following the busy past week, Monticello will take the current week off. They are next in action at the Strata Invitational in Roosevelt, UT on Friday, April 14.