Nevada track competes at state

JEFFERSON CITY -- The Nevada High School track and field team took two relay teams and three individual athletes to the MSHSAA Class 3 State Track and Field Championships Friday afternoon, on the campus of Lincoln University.

Three of the five events that featured Nevada High School representatives had their preliminary rounds on Friday and things didn't go nearly as well as Nevada head coach Robert Watts might have hoped. In order to qualify for Saturday's finals, Nevada's athletes needed to finish the preliminary round in the top eight, but were unable to do so in any of those three events.

In the boy's 4x100 relay, Nevada entered the day with the 15th-best seed time of the 16 teams in the event after posting a school-record time of 44.14 seconds at the Class 3, Sectional 3 meet and did improve their position, but the 10th-best preliminary time of 44.28 the Tigers posted Friday was 41/100 of a second too slow to move on to Saturday's finals.

In the girls' 4x100 relay, Nevada entered the day with the 13th-best seed time after winning the Sectional Championship with a time of 51.46. The Lady Tigers picked up one spot and improved their time by nearly half a second, but their preliminary time of 51.106 was 1.1 seconds off the pace the Lady Tigers needed to advance to Saturday's finals.

Dalton Hendren was the Tigers' last hope at advancing beyond Friday's preliminary rounds as he competed in the boys' 200-meter dash. He entered the day with the 11th-best seed time after posting a 22.79 at the Sectional meet, but was unable to back that up in his preliminary heat.

Hendren's preliminary time was nearly half a second slower than his seed time and he missed the cut by nearly the same margin.

Thanks to Friday's preliminary struggles, the Tigers will enter the meet's second and final day with just two athletes left in pole vaulters Morgan Hold and Steffan Ogle. Hold will enter the day in prime position as his school record height of 15 feet, six inches was enough to have at least tied for the State Championship every year since the state record was set in 1993.

Both Hold and Ogle will get their chance at state medals on Saturday, when the Class 3 boys' pole vault finals begin at 2 p.m., at Dwight T. Reed Stadium, in Jefferson City.