Petersburg High School’s boys and girls track teams both finished in fourth at a meet in Ketchikan last weekend, as the Vikings continued to rewrite the PHS record book.
For the boys Petersburg finished behind Ketchikan and the two Juneau high schools, but tops for the smaller schools. Only three girls made the trip but that team was also fourth behind Thunder Mountain, Ketchikan and Sitka.
Coach Brad Taylor says his team continues to set school records in various events. “River Quitslund broke a very, very old record, another 32 year old record, in the 800 meters,” Taylor said. Beat it by about a half second or so. Ran a great prelim(inary) and was just a little bit over, couple hundreds of a second over and then ran a better finals so yeah it was exciting to see some of those records go. Another outstanding effort was with Evan Marsh in the shot put throwing over 42 feet. That was only the second time we’ve had a kid throw over 42 and he’s seeded pretty high at state with that throw as well.”
The PHS 4×400 relay team Ben Zarlengo, Casey Bell, Evan Marsh and River Quitslund set a new school record last weekend. (Photo courtesy of Viking Track and Field)
Ben Zarlengo set a new school record in the discus, throwing over 136 feet. And the Boys four-by-400 relay team of Casey Bell, Quitslund, Zarlengo and Marsh broke another school record.
For the girls, Izabelle Ith had another strong meet. “She won the the long jump with a decent jump of 16′ 7″, just a little bit under her PR (personal record) and then broke another school record in the 100 hurdles and she ran a 15:35 which is unbelievable. She’s seeded first in state in the 100 hurdles, the 300 hurdles and she’s just very very close, within a couple of inches, in the long jump and triple jump. So if she pulls off a good meet at state she could do very very well,” Taylor said.
Taylor noted other strong efforts from Abel Aulbach, Kayleigh Eddy and Nathaniel Lenhard. The coach said his athlete continue to improve and set PRs or personal records, as well as school records. “The kids have performed really well and we see times, we see a lot of PRs and hopefully we can just continue to do that. Kids have been lot of fun to travel with, a pleasure to coach and I’m very, very happy at this stage.”
The regional meet is this weekend at Thunder Mountain High School in Juneau.
