SHAWN O’BRATE
LANDER–After the Riverton Wolverines boys team took the Keeper of the Gold traveling trophy against Lander on Friday they had a quick turnaround and headed to their rival’s home field to compete in the Lander Twilight meet Tuesday afternoon.
Many student athletes knew the parameters of what this meet means after splitting the two trophies between them and their Lander rivals last weekend, making the Twilight meet even more important to some.
“This is kind of the grind of the season,” Coach Matt Mason said, “Kids are getting tired, and you’re trying to train when you have two, maybe three, meets a week.”
Mason said that a lot of his athletes were running different events than usual to keep them limber and keep them refreshed after less time between such influential meets.
The crosswind, as usual, had some effect on the runners but with the gusts helping out some of the field events there were plenty of Riverton athletes that broke personal records and came away with higher placings on the day.
One of those athletes was sophomore Nathan Mills who chucked the discus throw over 120-feet, marking a 10-foot increase on his personal best, and shortly afterwards tossed a new personal record in the shot put with a 39’ 9.25” finish–both earned him first place in the events.
Then there was senior Ciarah Hall who not only took first in the triple jump (again) but broke her personal best by six inches, moving her further up the Riverton record books to seventh in the event all-time.
Kaden Chatfield, a sophomore, also found his way on the all-time list of Riverton athletes when he finished the 800-meter run in under two-minutes and ten-seconds, landing him at ninth in school history.
Senior Tristan Watkins was once again outstanding in the 100m and 200m dash, taking first in both races but coming just a few tenths of a second shy of his personal bests. He doesn’t blame the strong crosswind for this very slim downturn but he did say that “it slows us down a little bit, it messes you up every now and then”.
Watkins, who wasn’t on the relay team this week, believed in his teammates that replaced him in the 4x400m relay and he had every right to as they came in first by ten seconds thanks to senior Caleb Crowley’s anchor leg performance in Watkins’ spot from last week.
Another common name that Riverton tends to find on the top of the poles was junior McAye Fegler who set a personal record in the 200m dash when she finished fifth and was two seconds shy of her best in the 400m where she finished third.
In the end the Riverton squad came away with eleven first-place finishes, including two by junior Watie Whiteplume who beat everyone in the high jump with a 5’6” leap as well as the triple jump where he finished 2.75-inches short of a personal best. There was also Ty Sheets cleaning up the long jump event once again with a best-of-the-day leap of 18’6.25”–somehow nine inches behind his personal record.
Riverton wasn’t the only local school who showed up and showed out at the Lander Twilight event. Western Heritage Lutheran Academy took first overall in the 4×100 meter relay in the varsity girls division with a rapid time of 58.02 seconds.
Sophomore Kelsey Parmely also had a great day, finishing second in the long jump and setting a personal record in the 100m dash with a 14.59-second finish. Parmely was one of only a handful of kids from Western Heritage to show at Lander which made her feel special, in a way.
“I feel like we definitely get more one-on-one time than other big schools,” Parmely said after finishing the 200m dash.
Parmely’s teammate, Kylee Lehto, also had a great day when the microscope was on her as she finished fourth in the high jump and placed top-ten in the 300m hurdles.
All-in-all the windy, gusty day in Lander was a fun time for kids from all over central Wyoming and acted as one of the final events to pre-qualify for regionals and for state which takes place at the end of May.