Pacific track advances 11 | Sports

The Rockwood Summit girls won the district team title with 141.5 points while the Rolla boys scored 156.5 points to win that side.

Pacific’s girls scored 81, finishing behind Washington (124), West Plains (121) and Rolla (113.5), but ahead of Sullivan (52), Union (50) and St. Clair (49).

The Pacific boys finished with 40.25 points.

Pacific will send 10 athletes to the Class 4 Section 3 meet Saturday in West Plains, competing with 11 entries across nine events.

Two Pacific athletes won the district, one on each side of the competition.

Sach Wolf won the boys 110-meter hurdles with a finals time of 15.0.

Molly Prichard won the girls shot put with the top heave of 11.29 meters.

The girls shot put was one of two events where the Lady Indians put through two entries in the same competition.

In addition to Prichard winning the event, Pacific freshman McKenna Lay placed fourth at 10.44 meters.

The Lady Indians took second and fourth in the girls 100-meter hurdles with Lexi Lay ranking second (16.42) and Arionna Edmonds fourth (16.8).

In the preliminary heats, their positions were flipped with Edmonds second at 16.37 and Lexi Lay fourth at 16.52.

“Any time you have two strong kids in an event, they benefit and they push each other,” Pacific Head Coach Jim Menderski said. “I think Arionna even finished ahead of Lexi in the prelims. They have the advantage of having someone to compete with every day in practice.”

Lexi Lay will have the busiest sectional meet, competing in three events after also qualifying with a third-place district finish in the girls long jump (5.24 meters) and taking part in the third-place girls 800-meter relay (1:50.89).

Lexi Lay’s long jump set a new school record, Menderski reported.

Six of Pacific’s 10 sectional athletes will have multiple events to contend with.

On top of qualifying in the shot put, McKenna Lay also placed second in the girls javelin with a throw of 36.1 meters.

Sach Wolf added to his 110-meter hurdle win by ranking second in the boys 300-meter hurdles in 41.42.

Ella Murphy, Liberty Blackburn and Grace Dryer were each on the third-place 800-meter relay team as well as the fourth-place 1,600-meter relay team (4:20.17).

They were joined by Lexi Lay in the 800-meter relay and Aleyna Daniel in the 1,600-meter relay.

“The girls 800-meter relay ran their hearts out,” Menderski said. “They beat their best time by almost four seconds.”

Nathaniel Knaff placed third in the boys shot put to advance, throwing for 13.35 meters.

Knaff also heaved the javelin 50.42 meters, setting a new school record in the process, but finished just sixth in the district and will not advance in the event.

“Knaff broke the school record in javelin by three meters and still didn’t make it out,” Menderski said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. It was a real battle to try to get as many kids out as we could.”

While Blackburn advances in the two qualifying relays, she nearly made it in all four events.

Blackburn finished just shy of qualifying in the girls high jump (1.46 meters) and triple jump (10.16).

She ended the high jump in a three-way tie for third place with Washington’s Annelise Obermark and Rolla’s Resa Martin, but lost out on the tiebreaker.

A little more than five inches separated Blackburn from qualifying in the triple jump.

Wolf nearly qualified in a third event, ending fifth in the boys shot put with a throw of 13.33 meters, less than half an inch behind the fourth-place spot.

Lexi Lay and Edmonds were both just behind the cutline in the girls 300-meter hurdles with Lay (52.25) fifth and Edmonds (53.34) sixth.

Jenna Adair (33.52) ranked sixth in the girls javelin and Dylan Stout ran sixth in the boys 1,600-meters in 4:50.89.

Only the top four athletes in each event advance to the sectional round where once again only the top four will advance to the state championships May 26-27 being held at Jefferson City High School.