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Photo by Ann Heidrich Senior Luke Van took eighth place in the 100 m dash finals with a time of 11.74 seconds in his final track event as an RHS Thunderbolt . Click for larger view

Photo by Ann Heidrich State medalist, Ty Van Oort, in the shot put competition. Click for larger view

Photo by Ann Heidrich 4X200m boys' relay team: Jake Van, Chaz Guererro, Matt Schuette, Luke Van. Click for larger view

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This past weekend, these thirteen track and field athletes from Rye High School competed at the State Tournament at JEFFCO Stadium in Denver: girls’ 4 X 800 relay team (Sarah Pigg, Dania Shipley, Taylor Mansfield, and Holly Steele), girls’ 400m dash – Holly Steele, girls’ 200m dash – Holly Steele, boys’ 4 X 100m relay and 4 X 200m relay teams (Jake Van, Chaz Guererro, Matt Schuette, and Luke Van), boys’ 4 X 400m relay team (Alex Handerhan, Billy Jack Forell, Jesse Bickle, and Chaz Guererro), boys’ 100m dash – Luke Van, boys’ 800m run – Billy Jack Forell, boys’ long jump – Jake Van, boys’ triple jump – Troy Zupancic, and boys’ shot put and discus – Ty Van Oort. The excited athletes and coaches Jeff Bailey and Tammy and John Van Oort left Rye High School about 8:30 am Thursday morning for Denver; several of the kids would be competing later in the day and evening.

Thursday, the first day of events, had the 4 X 800m girls’ relay team (Sarah, Danica, Taylor, and Holly) in preliminaries. The RHS team finished in tenth place in 10:20.8 and did not make it to finals. The lead off runner, Sarah Pigg had a very frustrating leg. She got trapped in the back of the pack and was not able to make her move forward. Luckily none of this group of girls are seniors, and all should be returning to the track next year. Meanwhile Ty VanOort was busy in the discus ring. He scratched two times and had one good throw of 139’.05”, which was enough to make the cut for finals. Ty, just a sophomore, placed fourth in the discus and earned a trip to the podium. Troy Zupancic represented RHS in the triple jump. His best leap was 38.75”, not enough for the cut for finals. Other running events had speedster Luke Van qualifying for finals in the 100m dash, finishing in ninth place in preliminaries with a time of 11.43. Luke, along with other sprinters on the 4 X200m boys’ relay team (Jake, Matt, and Chaz) also will run in finals with a fifth place in preliminaries in 1:31.36, which was a new PR (personal record). The same group in the 4 X 100m relay repeated a fifth place finish in preliminaries in 43.66 seconds and made finals. Their time was, once again, a new PR. The 4 X 400m boys’ relay team of Alex, Billy Jack, Jesse, and Chaz did not make finals. They came in at thirteenth place with a time of 3:36.68, taking better than 1 second off of their best time.

On Friday, Ty Van Oort was back at the throwing ring, this time in the shot put. In preliminaries he tossed a 47’1” which was a huge PR and had him in fifth place going into finals. He stayed in fifth place in the shot put with that throw, which was 1 ½ feet better than his personal best going into state competition; Ty got another trip to the podium. The boys’ 4 X 200 relay team was back on the track for their final race of the season and finished in eighth place with a final time of 1:32.06. Holly Steele ran in both the 200m dash and the 400m run. She finished eighteenth in the 200m in 28.51 seconds and in eleventh place in the 400m in 62.93 seconds. Billy Jack Forell ran his 800m run in 2:08.75, not able to place in the race. He had the same kind of run as Sarah Pigg the day before. Billy Jack also got caught in a large group of runners, preventing him from making his move to advance to the front and be in a decent position to finish.

Saturday, the final day, the Thunderbolts had three events left. The boys’ 4 X 100m dash took sixth place in finals with a time of 43.99 seconds, good enough for a trip to the podium. Jake Van came close, but was not able to place in the long jump, finishing in eleventh place with a final leap of 20’02.5”. His twin brother, Luke took eighth place in the 100 m dash finals with a time of 11.74 seconds in his final track event as an RHS Thunderbolt .

That wraps it up for the 2010 RHS track season. We would like to bid adieu to seniors Jake and Luke Van, Chaz Guererro, Alex Handerhan, Troy Zupancic, and Chris Lewis. It has been a great four years of watching these young folks run, jump, and throw – there have been many thrills! We wish you all luck in your future endeavors and thank you for many fantastic memories. Also, congratulations to all the other track and field participants and to their coaches. It was an awesome season with new records and many personal records. We will be looking forward to seeing the returning RHS tracksters again next season.

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