Neepawa captures AAA team banner

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This article was published 10/06/2019 (2488 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG — The Neepawa Tigers saved their best hops, skips, jumps and sprints for last to bring home a provincial high school AAA track and field banner on Saturday.

The star-studded group, full of Prairie Storm Athletics competitors, was the favourite to top the AAA category. They nearly pulled off a shocking upset in the varsity boys’ overall event, finishing second with just five athletes.

Ben Perrett did his part as he closed out his high school career. Already with a medley-relay bronze, the University of New Brunswick commit blew away the 400-metre final field in 49.83 seconds. He was a slight favourite after the semifinals, and a heavy one when he broke open a big lead on the last turn. By the end, second place went to Ty Cox-Yestrau of J.H. Bruns at 50.42.

“I just wanted to come out hard. The one guy I was going to pace off of ended up getting injured, which was unfortunate and I wish him a speedy recovery,” Perrett said of Kelvin’s Adam Chahid. “Usually at 200, if I go in number one there’s not a lot of guys who can close like I can, so that was a good moment for me.”

Perrett left it all out on the track with one last podium finish, snagging a bronze in the 200m.

“It’s nice to finish with a win in the 400m, and even top five in the 200m is awesome. In my four years of doing this I’ve never come home with three medals, so it’s awesome,” Perrett said.

Taine Middleton finished close behind in fifth, adding to his fourth-place finish in the 100m on Friday. While he didn’t medal in an individual race, he picked up valuable points, as did Daxx Turner, Max Baker and Riley Neufeld.

Turner already had a javelin gold, high jump silver and medley bronze before the triple jump, and won that one easily.

With a chance at the podium, Neufeld knew he had to bring his best jump with his last one.

“I knew I could go over 13 and that’s all I wanted to do again,” Neufeld said. “Keep progressing, slowly get better and better and work on my flaws, hopefully just break out a big jump.”

He delivered. And he knew it as soon as he hit the sand at 13.13 metres. A year ago, he finished 12th in junior varsity at 11.20. Now he’s on the podium.

“It’s kind of overwhelming just knowing I got the podium considering how much I’ve progressed since last year. It really felt great.”

It was a full-team effort for the Tigers, as Lara Denbow earned silver in the JV girls’ triple jump and 800m. Denbow leapt 10.89 metres in the triple jump final, one day after breaking the JV girls provincial record with a mark of 11.51 in qualifiers.

Shelby Gluska slid into third in the JV girls’ 3,000m.

It’s a special group, and one that means a lot to the athletes.

“We have a nice group. We see each other twice a week and we’ve developed friendships and a miniature family. That’s carried into NACI as well. Lots of kids who joined the track team wanted to build those relationships and enjoy the sport like we do,” Perrett said. “This sport has given me lots of things and I’m happy it’s provided me so much and I’ve really enjoyed it, I’m so thankful.”

• • •

Dauphin’s Ethan Thacker made the absolute most of the final weekend of his high school sports career, chasing down a pentathlon gold medal.

When it came down to the fifth and final event — the 800m — Thacker had 2,248 points to Preston Kull’s 2,246. Basically, he had to beat Kull and stay within a stone’s throw of Glenlawn’s Michael Caryk, who was in third place, to take the title.

Mission accomplished. He beat Kull by nearly five seconds and his time of 2:11.84 was just over a second back of Caryk. Thacker finished at 3,050 points.

“It was a pretty cool experience. I tied for third last year and wasn’t really sure how it was going to go. There’s some absolute beasts in pentathlon, so it felt pretty good to get it done,” Thacker said, adding he had some unlikely sources of encouragement before the race. “I know the guys beside me were cheering me on anyway, even though we were in competition, so it was pretty fun.”

Thacker was first in the 100m at 12.00 seconds, but didn’t lead the field in any other events. He recorded a personal best in shot put at 11.97 metres to keep pace, and stayed close enough to the top in the others.

For Thacker, the keys to success in the event are simple.

“Explosiveness,” he said. “Explosiveness in your legs, because that works well in everything. Then just mindset, motive, it always takes so long and you just have to go the whole time.

“I love it. I love being on a team, but the individual aspect of it, focusing on yourself is pretty cool.”

In the JV boys’ pentathlon, Brady O’Neil of Erickson claimed bronze with 2,357 points.

• • •

ON THE TRACK: Daniele Dyck of the Vincent Massey Vikings completed her double-gold, following up her varsity girls’ 100m gold with a 200m victory on Saturday, running the final in 25.35 seconds — .09 ahead of the second-place finisher.

Peighton Johnson of Baldur was right behind in third with a time of 25.61 seconds, then nearly broke the one-minute mark in the varsity girls’ 400m final, finishing second at 1:00.33.

Massey’s Jorja Hoad added a junior varsity girls’ 200m silver to Friday’s 100m second-place finish in 26.50 seconds.

In the final event of the weekend, Hoad anchored the Vikings JV girls’ 4x100m relay team to a bronze medal. Somerset’s Prairie Mountain, which won the A school team banner, earned silver in the event.

Erica Pouteau of Prairie Mountain ran the JV girls’ 3,000m in 10:49.19 to earn a silver medal.

Raegan Ricard of Prairie Mountain in Somerset finished third in the JV girls’ 800m at 2:22.80.

• • •

IN THE FIELD: Eric Preston of Ste. Rose won the JV boys’ javelin title, throwing a 43.95 to beat Connor Langan of Cartwright’s second-place mark of 39.71.

Michayla Peacock of Prairie Mountain claimed silver in the JV girls’ javelin with a 31.93-metre throw.

Killarney’s Russell Outhwaite earned a silver in the JV boys’ discus with a 37.31-metre throw.

In the varsity boys’ discus, Dauphin’s Rueben Houle (39.65) won silver and Virden’s Santre Fosty (37.31) cracked the podium with bronze.

Sergei Blazic of Dauphin earned bronze in the varsity boys’ shot put at 12.98 metres.

Natalie Gundrum of Prairie Mountain won bronze in the varsity girls’ triple jump at 10.46 metres.

Mikayla Grabowski of Hamiota threw 3.05 metres to earn bronze in the para-intellectual girls’ shot put.

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