Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — For the members of the Steamboat Springs track teams, the season comes down to this weekend and the regional track meet.

"As far as I'm concerned, none of the other meets have mattered," senior runner Amy Fox said. "This is the whole deal. Everything depends on the regional."

In the past, the number of Sailors advancing from the regional meet to state has been too small to justify a full-sized school bus. The team has crowded into a Suburban or microbuses for the three-hour journey to Denver.

But Fox said there is enough talent on this year's team to fill a much larger bus for the state meet, and she thinks the Sailors will send a record number of runners, jumpers and throwers.

Coach Andy Reust hopes Fox is right and that the team needs a bigger ride to Jefferson County May 16-17. He said it has been a goal of the team since the first practice of the season.

"I expect all of them to make it," Reust said when asked how many athletes he thought would qualify for state. "Everybody on this team wants to pull up in front of Jefferson County Stadium in one of those big, yellow school buses. They all know what it's going to take to have that happen."

The coach said he would need at least 20 athletes to make the cut this weekend in Grand Junction to reserve the bigger bus for the trip. If the number is smaller than that, the team will be back in the smaller vehicles.

"It's not going to be easy," Reust said. "We will need our best meet of the season."

Steamboat wrapped up the regular season in Moffat County last Saturday in a somewhat abbreviated meet. Steamboat didn't take part in the afternoon events because many of the athletes were taking college entrance exams or in a hurry to get back to Steamboat for prom.

Freshman Jessica Peters stole the show by earning first place finishes in all four events she entered.

Peters cruised to the win in the 100-meter dash in a time of 12.74 seconds.

Her time of 25.75 in the 200 and 60.69 in the 400 also earned her first place medals. She topped her performance by winning the high jump with an effort of 5 feet.

Other top finishes on the girls side included Kristyn Bradbury's third (17.36) in the 100-meter hurdles and Missy Chotvacs' fourth (31-feet, 2-inches) in the triple jump. Jennifer Hooper was fifth in the 3,200-meter run and eighth in the 1,600-meter run.

Lauren Lightfoot placed sixth in the 3,200.

Steamboat's 800-meter medley relay team took third.

The team of Bradbury, Mackenzie Frank, Chotvacs and Fox finished in a time of 2:01.

Florie Van Baak, Katie Conrath, Lauren Lightfoot and Hooper raced to a fourth-place finish in the 3,200-meter relay in a time of 11:28.

Ryan Proffitt and David McDonald led the boys team with second-place finishes.

Proffitt took the silver in the 100-meter dash in a time of 11.39. McDonald also took second in the high jump with an effort of 5-8. Other top individual finishers included Sam Tarrant's eighth-place finish in the 1,600-meter run and Chris Dombey's eighth in the long jump.

Fox said the final stretch of the season has been a little scattered this year because of how spring break and prom fell.

"You just never know what to expect, and the weather hasn't helped" Fox said. "But with the coaching staff and all the people who are taking the regional meet seriously, I think we will be able to pull it off."

The regional meet will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday at Grand Junction's Stocker Stadium