State Track Meet Recap

What an incredible State Meet! For a lot of our runners it was the last time they donned the Manual singlet. For others it was an opportunity to shine on the biggest stage in the state. I couldn't be prouder with what these kids achieved this year.

The day started with the girls 4x800 relay who finished 3rd in AAA State with a season best 9:40.94. Rachel Been ran a terrific second leg, splitting around a 2:28 which would have been a PR for her. Congrats to Mattie Gottbrath, Danielle Kitchen and Emma Kuntz as well on an impressive showing.

The 4x800 boys just missed the podium with a 9th place finish in 8:12.56. They wanted a medal but their time bested the duPont Manual school record by a fraction of a second! Austin Snider, Cyrus Henry and Reed McKinley finish their high school career with their names in the record book along with junior, Darius Payne. Cyrus Henry ran a great 3rd split of the relay, wrapping up his high school career with a gutsy race.

The girls 4x200 finished 14th overall with another sub 1:50 time. Well done Mary King, Bria Steen, Labreea Hall and Alari LaRue.

The girls 1600 featured two Manual Runners. Emma Dryden ran a very smart, tactical race, fishing 13th overall with a 5:33.85 - 3 second PR. After a tough 4x800 leg, Danielle Kitchen gutted out a season best time of 5:41 to wrap up an impressive high school career.

In the boys 1600, Reed McKinley also ran a tough race after running a terrific split in the 4x800 and still managed his 5th sub-4:40 time of the season with a 4:39.50. Reed finished a stellar senior season especially considering that before March of last year he had never broken 5:00 for the 1600!

The boys 4x100 was next and ran 13th overall with a 44.49. Congrats to Steven Gordon, Trey Boyd, Tim Comstock and Tyrone Howard.

Labreea Hall finished 12th in the girls 400m with a 1:00.10, just a second off of her PR.

Jordon Gonzalez finally cracked 50 seconds with a blazing 4th place finish in the boys 400m running 49.95. With just one junior ahead of him, Jordon will be looking at a state championship next year!

The girls 800 was one of the fastest in history and freshman Emma Kuntz shocked everyone (including herself) by running a school record time of 2:15.05 (7.5 second PR!) and finishing second overall. To give you some idea of how fast this race was, Emma's time is 5th All-Time in the history of high school running State of Kentucky! Mattie Gottbrath also ran an excellent 2:21.96 finishing 9th, which is only one second off her PR from last year's runner-up finish at State.

The boys 800 was a tough one and neither Darius Payne nor Austin Snider ran the times they wanted. This race definitely gave Darius something to shoot for next year but Austin ran a "guts out" 2 flat split in his 4x800 and simply didn't have the legs in the open race. He had a terrific senior campaign and will carry his achievements this year to Georgetown College next year!

Jordon Gonzalez ran another PR race in the open 200m, finishing 5th with an impressive 22.37. He and the younger sprinters are hungry for next year and the state better watch out!

In the girls 3200 Christina Rucinski ran a strategically smart race but wasn't feeling it that day. She still ended up 15th overall and finishes her high school career with an impressive number of cross country and track and field state meet appearances. Great job Christina!

In the boys 3200, another freshman shocked the state by making the medal stand in his first ever state meet. Yared Nuguse ran another huge 11 second PR with an impressive 9:37.52. This time was twenty seconds faster than any freshman in the state, and from what I can tell, this is the 3rd fastest 3200 in duPont Manual History to only the legendary Mark Bell and David Hamm; and Yared is just a freshman! Gutsy race and well done!

The final race was the girls 4x400 where Mary King and Mattie Gottbrath finished up their high school careers with a 7th place finish in 4:02.87. This time is second all time to last year's 4:01 relay. Mattie ran a PR split of :62 while Mary, Emma Kuntz and Labreea Hall all ran just under 60 seconds. Great job ladies!

In the field events, Trey Boyd got on the medal stand with an impressive 21 ft jump in the long jump. This is all the more impressive considering that he only started jumping this spring! Alliyah Gant ended up 23rd overall the girls LJ.

The teams ended the day with the girl's 14th overall and the boy's 17th overall.

More information will follow about the team banquet but I wanted to get a summary of the meet up first. Also be sure to come out the cross country booster meeting Tuesday Night from 6-7 if you plan on running Cross next fall. Thanks again to everyone who participated, especially the alternates who came ready to run but didn't get a chance to run the blue track (next year!).

Go Crimsons!

Tim Holman