Lady Cardinals Win Districts

The Soda Springs boys and girls track and field teams participated in the 5th district championships held at Bear Lake high school last week.  With the temperatures in the low 30’s on Wednesday at the scheduled start time, the team coaches all agreed to delay the meet in hopes of warmer weather.  With several events scheduled for the two day meet, the athletes were eventually forced to brave the frigid temperatures so as to not overload the Thursday schedule.  

The meet got started with several field events.  Despite the cold temps, the Cardinals had several athletes qualify for state with some even setting new season or career records.  The only running finals scheduled for day one were the sprint medley relays and the 3200 meter race.  The lone Cardinal boy, freshman Landon Moldenhauer, participating in those races qualified for state taking third in the 3200 meter race.  The girls placed first and second in the 3200, with Lizzie Beutler and India Galloway.  The girls medley relay came up a little short coming in second place forcing them to wait to see if they can claim a wildcard spot at state.

The boys team went on to add six more athletes to the automatic state qualifier list.  The team ended up in last place in the team scoring due in large part to the lack of number of athletes.  With just eleven boys shown on the roster having seven qualify is a very respectable percentage.

Number of athletes is not an issue for the girls team which is loaded with talent in both the running and field events.  Jinettie Garbett swept the sprints and earned a season record in the 400 meter sprint in the process.  Garbett will be joined at state by Brooklyn Kempe and Aspen Christensen in sprints.  Ellie Wood will compete in the 1600 meters at state, joining the above-mentioned Beutler and Galloway in the distance races.  In the field events Izzy Shelton set yet another school record in the shot put claiming first place and also qualifying in the discus.  Rosie Harris placed first in the pole vault followed in second by Genevieve Fullmer, who set a new PR in the event.  Rosie also qualified in the high jump and Madilyn Kempe is headed to state in the long jump.  In addition to all of the individual events the girls team also had teams in every relay.  In those races the girls earned second place in the aforementioned medley relay as well as the 4x200.  In the 4x100 and 4x400 meter relays the Lady Cardinals would earn district championships.  Even with the second place finish in the 4x200 race the Cardinals time of 1:47.78 to the top team Aberdeen’s time of 1:47.72 gives the Cards a real chance of earning a wildcard in that race.  In the end with several strong performances the Lady Cardinals came out on top as a team outscoring the second place team by over fifty points and earning yet another district title.

All state qualifiers will compete at the state meet taking place at Middleton High School on Friday and Saturday.  A complete list of state qualifiers are listed below.