Bearcat Track & Field News
Bearcat boys set school record for points scored while winning Kearney High Invitational [ 04/10/2009 ]
By BUCK MAHONEY, Hub Sports Editor
KEARNEY — Add another bragging point for the Kearney High boys track team. They’re mudders. Despite freezing rain, wind and cold temperatures, the Bearcats set a school scoring record Thursday at the Kearney High Invitational.
The Bearcats scored 261 ½ points, beating runner-up Lincoln Southwest, which scored 76 points. No other team in the seven-school meet tallied 40 points.
“That’s a lot (of points). That wasn’t the idea,” KHS coach Roger Mathiesen said. “When those guys mentioned it a little bit ago, I wasn’t even aware of the team score. We were concentrating on the effort and getting better. … We’re better than when we started, and we know more.”
In all, Kearney won 11 of the 17 events. The Bearcats went 1-2-3 in the 800, 110-meter high hurdles and shot put; 1-2-4 in the 100 and long jump, 1-2 in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles and 2-3-4 in the discus. They also swept the relays.
Josh Mead and Jack Chatelain were double winners. Mead won the 100 and 200, while Chatelain won the long jump and the 110-meter high hurdles.
Because Kearney’s earlier meets have been indoors or cancelled, Thursday was the first time the Bearcats ran the 100-meter dash, the 110-meter high hurdles or the 300-meter high hurdles.
“At least we’ve been outside now and we have some marks. … We had a lot of pretty good marks through the day. We’re pretty happy,” Mathiesen said. Everyone was pretty wet, too.
“We had to get outside. We had to have our kids push the proverbial wall or barrier back on the track. We had to get better, and I think we did,” Mathiesen said. “The times in some cases, anything where we had to run a whole lap, were not reflective of what the effort was. The short races, like the hurdles, those are pretty good times. Obviously, they’re wind-aided, but nevertheless.”
Chatelain posted a 14.4-second time in the 110-meter high hurdles with Brandt Haupt second at 14.9. In the 100-meter dash, Mead ran a 10.7-second time with Vince Molina second at 10.8. Mead also ran 22.5 in the 200.
Mead’s 200 race came near the end of the day when the weather was near its worst. Throughout the day, conditions continued to worsen as cool, cloudy and breezy turned into cold, freezing rain and windy.
“Truly, I never heard one complaint from one of our kids; never heard one,” Mathiesen said. “We ran two mile relays (the last event of the day) and they wanted to run. … and it is not nice out there. “But it was well worth our time. We got better today. Across the board, I thought we had really good effort.”