The Hillsboro High School track team showed up and performed well at Regionals in Marion on Friday. The boys are Regional Champions and the girls took fifth.
“To say we had a good day would be a huge understatement, the athletes simply performed exceptionally well. Individually and collectively the athletes came in with focus to compete. There are so many distractions at the end of a school term, but credit these young people with keeping their emotions in check and continuing to train and prepare for the regional competition. It is fun to see how the excitement of the team’s success was building throughout the meet. The goal at the regional meet is the same each year, try to qualify as many athletes as possible to the State Track & Field Championships,” said Head Coach Dennis Boldt.
Boys – For field events, Hillsboro had several athletes take first and second.
Wes Shaw grabbed first in both shot put and discus with a distance of 62-04 in the first and 149-05 in the latter. Jared Janzen came in second with a distance of 46-05 in shot put and 143-06 in discus.
Nate Hein took first in pole vault and Charlie Major took second.
Josiah Driggers came in first for both long jump and triple jump. Carson Linnens was second in triple jump.
For javelin, Austin Rempel came in third with Cole Kaufman right behind him at fourth.
Nate Hein took second in the 100.
Tristan Reed came in fourth in the 3200.
All of the above will move on to State which is this Friday and Saturday.
Hillsboro will be sending two boys relay teams to state since Demarius Cox, Josiah Driggers, Jamari Harris and Nate Hein took third in the 4×100, and Tristan Reed, Tucker Moss, Dillon Boldt and Caleb Diener also came in third.
“Special congratulations to the boys’ team on their Regional Championship, it was quite a day of scoring for them and we realize just how blessed we are to have performed so well on this particular day and we won’t take it for granted,” said Boldt.
Girls – Jessica Saunders took first in both shot put and discus and came in third for Javelin. Addie Berens secured first in javelin with a distance of 114-02.
Iris Klein had a distance of 4-08 in the high jump getting second place.
Eva Franz took third in the 400.
All of these girls will compete again at State this weekend.
The girls relay team of Kinsey Kleiner, Addie Berens, Sammie Saunders and Mallory Ediger heads to state after coming in fourth in the 4×100.
“Our staff knows how special it is to compete at a State Championship, and I appreciate all their hard work preparing these young people for today’s competition. I am particularly excited to take each of the relays that competed today, I don’t know that any group was more excited than the 4×100 girls’ team when they found out they qualified after a close finish. The success was contagious and that is what we hope for during a meet. Although athletes compete in many individual events, collectively they helped each other get through the highs and lows of the day and in the end both the girls’ and boys’ became better teams. They are a fun group and deserve the success,” said Boldt.
