MORENCI — The Morenci varsity boys track and field team crowned four regional champs, sent six athletes to the MHSAA State Finals meet, and broke a school record this year.
“Regionals is always a good meet; we always run well at regionals,” head coach Jon Boesger said. “I think the regional meet this year was exceptionally good because we broke a school record, and the hope is always to state-qualify.”
Sophomore Kylan Lester set the new Morenci High School 100-meter dash record when he ran 11.05 seconds in the prelims at regionals. He would later take first place in the finals with a time of 11.11s.
Lester was joined by senior teammates Van Ekins, Kevin Kaufman and Wyatt Berger for the 4x100m relay. They won the relay in a time of 45.49s, edging out Britton Deerfield by one hundredth of a second.
Seniors Michael Rising, Zach Martinez, Kaufman and Ekins placed third in the 4x200m relay with a state-qualifying time of 1:35.48s.
Kaufman also qualified for the state finals in the 300m intermediate hurdles finishing second with a time of 42.88s and pole vault with a qualifying vault of 11’ 0’.
He capped off an excellent season on May 31 by tying for sixth at the state finals with a vault of 12’ 0’’.
Kaufman placed third at the Lenawee County Championships just four days earlier with a personal record vault of 12’ 6’’. He took second in that same meet in the 300m intermediate hurdles with a PR of 42.24s.
Berger took second place in discus at regionals with a toss of 131’ 9’’, just shy of his 133’ 4’’ personal record. He also placed fifth at the Lenawee County Championships with a toss of 128’ 1’’.
Ekins ran his PR of 16.87s in the 110m hurdles and placed sixth at the County Championships and had a fifth-place finish in the 300m hurdles.
Senior Beau Shaffer dealt with injury all season which limited his availability. Shaffer was an extremely hard worker and when healthy was a dependable distance runner who could fill in relays as needed.
These six seniors along with foreign exchange students Anil Guler, Danilo Goranovic, Ishmam Choudhury and Jaloladdin Rahimov will be sorely missed next year.
But Boesger is optimistic about the future. He pointed out that Lester is only a sophomore. He was also impressed with freshman throwers Drew Joughin and Brennen Harsh.
“Drew and Brennen have been steady and were way more competitive than freshmen should be,” he said.
Brennen threw a PR of 40’ 3.5’’ in the shot put at the Lenawee County Championships and has a PR of 114’ 7’’ in the discus. Joughin split time with baseball and still showed steady improvement hitting his discus PR in his last meet with a toss of 112’ 3’’.
Junior thrower Emmanuel DePalma threw 38’10’’ for his PR in shot put and will be a vital returning piece of the throwing team next year, as will sophomores Briar Price and David Muir.
