Track & field team places at Bishop Kelly tournament

The Mountain Home Tigers track team competed at the two-day Knight Invitational track and field meet at Bishop Kelly High School on Friday and Saturday. The Mountain Home girls came in sixth while the Tiger boys were 15th overall.

The hosting Lady Knights won the girls meet, picking up 128.5 points. Vallivue was second with 101, Borah was third with 78.5, Madison, fourth with 69, Centennial fifth with 55.5 and Mountain Home was sixth with 40. There were 21 teams competing in the girls competition.

Alexandera Tatum and Sable Lohmeier led the Mountain Home girls. Tatum finished second in the long jump and triple jump and fifth in the 100 meters. Sable was third in the discus throw and fourth in the shot put. Keyndra White had a sixth in the long jump, and Rachel Johnson tied for eighth in the high jump.

Capital won the boys competition with 111 points. Centennial was second with 84, right ahead of Vallivue's 81. Madison was fourth with 79 followed by Borah at 65.5, Bishop Kelly with 61.75, Caldwell at 46.75, Skyview with 43, Kuna at 39.5 and Elko with 37 to round out the top 10. Mountain Home finished 15th out of the 18 team competing.

Dallin Dearing had a fifth-place effort in the shot put and finished eighth in the discus throw. Eric Reetz was fifth in the 300 meter hurdles, and a member of the Mountain Home sprint medley relay team along with Brad Keierleber, Abrahan Salas and Nolan Pasqualetti that finished sixth.

"This was a very competitive competition having all classifications from different parts of the state," said Tigers head track coach Rich Urquidi. "We had no new athletes hit district qualifying marks this week, but six athletes bettered their previous marks."

Alexandera Tatum bettered three 12.89 seconds in the 100 meters, 16 feet, 3.75 inches in the long jump and 35 feet, 8.5 inches in the triple jump. Sable Lohmeier better both her throws with a shot put distance of 37 feet, 2.5 inches and a discus throw of 118 feet.

Thirteen athletes had personal bests, while most of the others ended with season bests, the coach added.

"It was a meet for class records, with four of them falling," the coach said. "Three sophomore records fell, with Alexandera Tatum breaking two (long jump and triple jump), and Sable Lohmeier breaking the 15-year-old shot put record."

Freshman Walker Harris broke the class record in the 1,600 meters at four minutes, 56.66 seconds. Two athletes cracked the top ten all-time, with Alexandera Tatum in the 100 meters and Anthony DeSantis in the 3200 meters, both coming in number nine.

Mountain Home competed at a junior varsity meet last Tuesday at Caldwell, finishing third in both the girls and boys competition.

"It was the first meet where our underclassmen were able to place in a meet running with other underclassmen," Coach Urquidi said. "The weather was terrible, but everyone competed to their best, by improving season bests or personal bests."

Mountain Home hosts a junior varsity meet on Thursday and travels to Skyview for a varsity meet on Friday.