25 PHS athletes compete at the 3A State Track and Field Championships

It was the biggest stage of high school competition over the weekend as 25 Panther student-athletes partook in the 3A State Track and Field Championships in Casper at Kelly Walsh High School’s Harry Geldien Stadium.

And it is on such a level that an athlete can be overcome by nerves, or spurred on with the adrenaline of the moment.

At first, it seemed a predominantly young squad might have had some of those jitters in the earliest moments.

“When we first pulled up, there were a few of the younger kids who said ‘Oh my God, there are so many people here,’” head coach Scott Smith said. “And we were one of the early buses, and it was just teams setting up their tents.”

It was a rather large gathering, of course, with all four classes of Wyoming teams on hand, and the thousands of relatives, friends and classmates out to cheer them on.

And while the nerves were there, by and large, the Powell representatives used it as fuel to come away with a ninth-place finish for the boys out of 15 teams and a runner-up for the Lady Panthers, just two points behind 3A team champion Jackson Hole.

The Powell boys tallied 36 points, just 10 points out of a top-five finish, while the girls 81 fell just short of Jackson’s 83 and placed them one point ahead of Cody’s 80.

It was the upper classmen leading the way for the Lady Panthers, as seniors Anissa Warner, Lexee Craig and Danna Hanks each came away with medals in multiple events.

Warner wins Best of the Best

Warner won all three of the jumps — long, triple and high — to close out her high school career in grand fashion.

Thursday’s opening day saw Warner add nearly 10 inches to her long jump seed distance, and would need all of it to hold off Star Valley’s Janice Hall.

Hall had bested her seed distance by more than 1-foot, but fell 2.25 inches short of Warner’s winning leap of 17 feet, 11.5 inches — a mark that would earn Warner Best of the Best honors with the best long jump out of all four classes.

In Friday’s triple jump, she allowed herself a little more breathing room with a win by more than 1 foot over Torrington’s Kaelyn Riley, with Warner sticking her best effort at a personal best 35 feet, 10 inches.

And these were Warner’s two “other” events, as she will be focusing on the high jump at the University of Wyoming starting next school year.

In Saturday’s high jump, her specialty, Warner matched her seed height of 5 feet, 4 inches, clearing it in less tries than Brianna Leman of Douglas to get her third, first-place finish.

Hanks’ handful of medals

Hanks was even a bit more busy than Warner, earning medals in four different events.

The senior raced to a second-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles, after having the fourth-best time in the prelims, and broke the 16-second mark, finishing at 15.66 seconds, just .07 seconds behind Wheatland’s Rachel Battershell.

“That was the fastest I’ve ever run that,” a winded Hanks said afterward.

“She has been wanting to break 16 seconds for two years now,” Smith said. “She was challenged by a couple very strong runners and she rose to it.”

Hanks also finished second in the 300 hurdles, knocking nearly a full second off her preliminary time, and would take sixth in the 400-meter dash, two spots behind teammate Julia Kay O’Neill, a sophomore, who took fourth with a time of 1:01.88.

That duo would also team up with Rachelle Cole and Maddy Hanks to place fifth in the 4x400 relay, finishing within one second of third place.

Craig claims three medals

Craig may have had one of the more diverse meets, earning medals in three very different events.

In her strongest suit, the pole vault, Craig finished second with a personal best 10 feet, 6 inches, and tied the Powell school record in the process.

The height equaled that of Amy Spellmeyer, who would go on to become an All-American and Big Ten champion in the pole vault at Purdue University.

Craig also raced to fifth in the 100 hurdles, after qualifying with the sixth-best time in the prelims, running a personal best 16.68.

“I got off to a really bad start,” she said of her preliminary heat. “I knew if I got off to a better start in the finals I could do better.”

Even amid a slight stumble in the finals, Craig nearly matched her PR with a 16.70 to move up a slot in the final standings.

Craig then would match her seed distance in the triple jump and place seventh in the event to claim her third medal of the weekend.

Racking up the medals

O’Neill would add her third medal by taking seventh in the 800 and it was Teo Faulkner that started Powell’s medal count by running to a fifth-place finish in Thursday’s opening event, the 3200.

Faulkner and O’Neill also closed out the opening day with Cole and Dagne Stratton by placing sixth in the 4x800 relay.

Panther boys place three

For the Panther boys, the scoring got started Thursday afternoon with three placing finishes in the high jump out of four that had qualified.

Colby Warner showed that his personal best of 5 feet, 10 inches at regionals was no fluke, as the freshman cleared the height again to take fifth.

His tries at the next height, 6 feet, which could have gotten him as high as third were close, but not quite.

Senior Jackson Griffin bettered his regional height of 5 feet, 6 inches to clear 5-foot-8 at state to tie for seventh with sophomore teammate Charlie Hall.

Freshman Koler McLaughlin wasn’t able to clear the opening height, 5-foot-6, but was thankful to have made it this far.

“The nerves definitely got to me a bit for the high jump,” he said. “But I’m glad I was able to make it here as a freshman, so now I know what to expect and can get the nervousness out of the way.”

Panthers on the podium

Not long after the high jump, Nate MaGill qualified for the finals in the 110 hurdles and would wind up getting a sixth-place finish to put him on the podium.

Brooks Asher got the first medal for the Powell boys on Friday, taking seventh in the pole vault at 12 feet.

Asher had a high of 11 feet during the season and then shot that up to 11-7 at regionals, but upped his personal best another 5 inches to earn a spot on the medal stand and point toward continued improvement for the sophomore.

Later Friday morning, Mason Olsen grabbed third place in the shot put with a toss of 47 feet, 9 inches, just before Paige Gann qualified for the finals in the 300 hurdles, knocking nearly one second off his seed time with a finish at 42.91.

Gann would virtually match that time (42.92) in the finals and take seventh.

“I always lose time around the curve,” the junior said. “I wish I could have improved on my time more, but I’ll be back next year.”

Going for distance

Shortly after noon, Gann’s younger brother Kanyon, a freshman, put his best feet forward in the triple jump, besting his seed distance by 4 inches to land at 41 feet, 4.25 inches to take fifth.

“I scratched on my first jump,” he said. “But that one would have been my best, I know I went really far on that one.”

Olsen would get his second medal on Saturday, placing third in the discus with a distance of 139 feet, 2 inches, a remarkable 12-foot improvement on his seeded throw.

The Panther 4x800 relay team of Teagan Cordes, Brandon Anderson, Alan Merritt and Cody Akin would place fourth with a time of 8:35.96 and Akin would go on to finish eighth in the 1600 to close out the Powell scoring finishes for the weekend.

There were other good performances that went unrewarded as Merritt, a freshman, finished 11th in the 3200, Zach Easum was 10th in the discus and A.J. Lewis was 10th in both the long and triple jumps, with a total of 15.5 inches separating him from medaling in each.

A bright future ahead

Gabri Lundberg missed qualifying for the finals in the 100-meter dash, but did knock off 0.6 seconds off her seed time, and with similar improvement, the freshman would more than be in the running.

Lundberg also finished 12th in the long jump, just four spots out of getting a medal, while Maddy Hanks took 13th in the pole vault and, as a sophomore, has plenty of time to make up some ground.

So while a trio of seniors may have led the way, Powell track and field’s strong performance at state was very much pushed along by its youthful depth, which should pave the way for at least as strong results in the coming years.