Thunder Mountain High School senior track and field captain Naomi Welling \u2014 a nine-time state track title winner \u2014 needed to beat Petersburg High School junior Izabelle Ith by three seconds in the final event to claim her third-straight pentathlon win at the Big C relays April 2 in Anchorage.<\/p>\n
Neck and neck with Ith in the last 300 meters of the women\u2019s 800-meter, Welling started her kick and broke away from her competitors to win by six seconds.<\/p>\n
Welling\u2019s finish at the Big C parallels the momentum TMHS track enjoys heading into their third-straight year with over 80 participants.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn a school level our name as a track program is building,\u201d Welling said. \u201cPeople are coming to us, whereas when I was a freshman we were having to reach out to people. We\u2019ve kind of made a name for ourselves during the time that I\u2019ve been here.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to coach Scott May, the Falcons have exceeded a glut of personal bests already this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just met before practice today and we went over two pages of personal records they got since last Saturday,\u201d May said. \u201cWe\u2019re off to a great start. \u2026 Competitively we\u2019re looking like we\u2019re coming in where we left off last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
May, Welling and the Falcons feel they\u2019re already stuffing the \u201cpiggy bank\u201d full to the brim.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe analogy is at the beginning of the season you start with a piggy bank,\u201d Welling explained. \u201cYour hard workouts and your good sleep and food choices, they fill up your piggy bank. Every once in a while it\u2019s ok to take something out with an unhealthy snack or you stay out late or something, but you don\u2019t want to drain that. On the big day you can cash in your piggy bank and do really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior sprinting captain Sam Johnson, whose men\u2019s 4×100 meter relay team placed second at the Big C, described the championship-level talent the boys have in short distance competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have some really good starts, like Adam Ramsey. Aiden (Hildebrand), of course, is one of the tops in state,\u201d Johnson explained. \u201cHe just showed up last year and beat us all in practice. We were all really confused and he ended up going to state and got the second-fastest time last year. John (Somerlot), he\u2019s pretty fast too. We\u2019re all in the relays together. And then Luke (Paden), he did distance before and moved over to sprints because he figured out he was pretty fast. He\u2019s our top 200 and 400 runner right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
TMHS is one of several unified teams across the state. The designation means the team has special olympics participants competing in several events alongside the rest of the team.<\/p>\n
Senior Andrew Degroat and sophomore Will Weinlaeder compete in the unified 4×100 meter relay and the 100-meter dash.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my first year ever of doing track, in the 4×100 relay my team got first place,\u201d Weinlaeder said, speaking of last year\u2019s ASAA state championships. The sophomore is known around the team \u2014 and the school \u2014 for an inspirational speech he gave before the state meet last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour team kind of becomes your second school,\u201d Weinlaeder said.<\/p>\n
Degroat couldn\u2019t agree more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first moved here, which was my freshman year, I didn\u2019t like it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut then when I came here, doing track, I started liking it, the team became family.\u201d<\/p>\n
TMHS holds an informal meet this weekend with Juneau-Douglas High School at Adair-Kennedy Memorial Park. TMHS\u2019 next official meet is at Ketchikan High School April 22 -23.<\/p>\n
After a meet at Sitka High School on April 29-30, TMHS holds their first home meet May 6-7. Regional championships take place at TMHS this year May 20-21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thunder Mountain High School senior track and field captain Naomi Welling \u2014 a nine-time state track title winner \u2014 needed to beat Petersburg High School junior Izabelle Ith by three seconds in the final event to claim her third-straight pentathlon win at the Big C relays April 2 in Anchorage. Neck and neck with Ith […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":30314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-30313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30313"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}