The cancellation of the Thermopolis Pre-Regional track meet on Friday created some sudden interest in the Lovell Invitational Saturday as the Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs hosted the first high school track meet in Lovell since 2003.


Eight teams plus several athletes from Cody participated on what turned out to be a beautiful spring day.


“It was nice to have a home meet for the first time since I’ve been here,” coach Joe Koritnik said. “With that goes the work that goes with putting on a meet. I’d like to thank Athletic Director Ina Hubbell, Denise Harrison, our starter Joe White and else who worked events to put it on.


“It was a good meet. The weather was nice, probably the best we’ve had all year. We were fortunate that bad weather cancelled the meet in Thermopolis. That allowed Powell, Riverside and Greybull to come. We had just the right number of teams.”


Despite the relatively small size of the meet and the fact that the junior-senior prom was the night before, Koritnik said the Lovell athletes competed very well on their home oval.


“We had some personal bests, but the effort was there regardless,” he said. “We competed very well. The boys led (the team standings) until the final event. We put up a lot of points that should give us confidence going into Regionals in Worland.”


Powell topped the field in the final boys’ standings with 133 points, edging the host Bulldogs, who finished with 130 points. Tongue River was third with 85 points followed by Cody with 53 points, Big Horn 48, Burlington 40, Riverside 12, Greybull 11 and Rocky Mountain 6.
On the girls’ side, Burlington topped the field with 124 points, and Tongue River was second with 106 points. Lovell was third with 77 points followed by Riverside with 55 points, Big Horn 45, Powell 32, Rocky Mountain 31, Cody 19 and Greybull 14.


The 3A West Regional Track and Field Meet will be held this Friday and Saturday in Worland with action beginning at 10 a.m. Friday and continuing at 9 a.m. Saturday.


Koritnik said he knows the Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs probably don’t have enough depth to win the title, but he wants to see athletes get a chance to travel to the state track meet next week.


“We want to qualify as many as we can for State and finish up there year down there with season bests,” he said. “We have four girls and three boys who have pre-qualified right now. Some kids are very close in several events. Our relay teams ran well Saturday and should be in contention down there.”

Perhaps the highlight of the meet was the performance of senior sprinter Carson Hessenthaler, who broke his own school record in the 200-meter dash for the third time this season and also won the 100-meter dash with a personal-record time.


Pushed by Powell’s Kenny Smith, Hessenthaler ran a school-record time of 22.43 in the 200, besting his record of 22.50 set last week at the Wyoming Track Classic in Casper. Smith was second at 22.52 with Andy Wang of Lovell eighth at 25.52 and Sam Smith 12th at 27.24.


“It was a great race,” Koritnik said. “There were some good runners there.”


Hessenthaler also burned up the course in the 100-meter dash, edging Smith in the finals by 2/10s of a second with a personal-record time of 10.87. Kade Baxendale ran a time of 13.08 in the preliminaries, Smith 13.30.


Hessenthaler also ran the 400-meter dash and placed second with a time of 55.49.


Freshman Benson Checketts also had a strong meet Saturday. He placed third in the 800 meters with a time of 2:13.59, a personal record, then out-kicked teammate Kenneth Moncur down the stretch in the 1,600 meters to place fourth at 5:00.09. Moncur was second, blasting away his personal record by 18 seconds with a time of 5:00.43, Jeremy Mangus seventh at 5:02.15, also a PR.


“All three of them ran well,” Koritnik said. “All three were right together. That’s what I wanted to see, where they ran together and helped each other out. I feel all three of them can go under five minutes at Regionals.”


Mangus was strong in the 3,200 meters, setting a new personal record with a second-place time of 11:01.41. Moncur was sixth with a personal-best time of 11:30.06.
Steve Ballard set a pair of personal records, placing sixth in the 110-meter high hurdles with a time of 19.34 and seventh in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles at 48.49.


The 400-meter sprint relay team of Grant Geiser, Braden Fink, Scotty Jameson and Hessenthaler placed first Saturday with a time of 46.08, while the 1,600-meter relay squad of Wes Mangus, Moncur, Taylor Nettik and Wang placed third at 3:55.92, Lovell’s best time of the season in the mile relay and the quartet’s first time under four minutes.


The 3,200-meter relay team of Moncur, Jeremy Mangus, Wang and Benson Checketts ran the eight laps in 9:15.56 in their first outing of the season, placing fourth.
In the field events, Braden Fink won two events and placed second in a third. Fink won the triple jump at 40-10 and the high jump at 6-4. He placed second in the long jump with a leap of 19-3. Geiser was fifth in the triple jump at 39-2½ and tried the high jump for the first time this season, placing fourth by clearing 5-8. Nettik was eighth at 5-4. Scotty Jameson placed seventh in the long jump at 17-6¼ and ninth in the triple jump at 35-3¼.


Tyler Anderson easily won both throwing events, capturing the shot put with a toss of 49-9¾ and the discus at 137-9. Michael Montanez finished seventh in the shot put at 41-7¾ and eighth in the discus with a throw of 114-9. Ben Long was 15th in the shot at 31-7¼, while Hyrum Checketts was 10th in the discus at 111-0.
Nettik placed fourth in the pole vault, clearing 11-2, and Wes Mangus was sixth at 10-2.

In the girls division, it was the Karen and Katie show, with a little Mykel and Greta thrown in.


Freshman Karen Koritnik won the long jump with a leap of 15-4¼ and ran the 100-meter dash for the first time this season, winning the sprint and pre-qualifying for State with a time of 12.90. Mykel Anderson was second in the 100-meter dash with a time of 13.11 and second in the 200-meter dash at 28.43. Katie Walker won the triple jump with a leap of 33-3½ and was third in the long jump at 14-9¼. Koritnik placed sixth in the triple jump at 31-1¼.


Anderson also matched her personal record in the pole vault with a vault of 8-6.


In the throws, Greta Kuehl placed fourth in the shot put at 31-6¾ and was eighth in the discus with a personal-record toss of 89 feet. Bethany Reasch was eighth in the shot at 28-6½ and 17th in the discus at 64-4. Keesha Savage was 13th in the shot put at 25-4½ and 14th in the discus at 70-6.


The sprint relay quartet of Wendy Walker, Stephanie Green, Katie Walker and Koritnik ran their best time of the season, covering the lap in 53.02. The foursome of Anderson, Sierra Phelps, Brandi Abraham MaKenzie Beck ran under five minutes for the first time this season in the 1,600-meter relay and placed third with a time of 4:56.22.


“They were thrilled and we were thrilled,” Koritnik said.
Phelps placed eighth in the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:13.34, and Abraham was eighth in the 300-meter low hurdles at 1:00.02. Wendy Walker was running strong in the 100-meter intermediate hurdles when she hit the second-to-last hurdle and fell, Koritnik said. She placed 10th with a time of 22.90.


Beck was 10th in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:53.46, Phelps 11th at 2:58.78.


Seven athletes have pre-qualified for State for the Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs heading into this week’s regional meet: Hessenthaler in the 100- and 200-meter dash, Fink in the high jump and triple jump, Tyler Anderson in the shot put and discus, Koritnik in the 100-meter dash and the long jump, Katie Walker in the triple jump Mykel Anderson in the pole vault and Kuehl in the shot put.