Valle Boys, Girls Both Place Fifth

By ERIC X. VICCARO

EVICCARO@STEGENHERALD.COM

The Valle Catholic High School boys’ and girls’ track and field teams finally participated in a meet with counted scores last Wednesday.

And the Warriors gave a fine accounting of themselves competing against many schools from much larger classifications at the Ste. Genevieve Invitational.

Valle Catholic’s boys and girls both finished fifth in their respective team standings in this, the first of several meets at Dragon Field this season.

Warriors’ head coach Samer Zoughaib said he was proud of how the boys and girls handled adversity — with wind chill temperatures in the 30s.

“The kids ran as well as possible, when it felt like 32 degrees,” Zoughaib said. “We represented our school well. The numbers will drop, and we will jump farther and higher.”

This marked the first counted meet for the Warriors since May 2019, before last year’s entire slate was wiped out due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.

“The kids were really excited to get a meet in,” Zoughaib said, noting how Valle’s Class of 2020 was unable to compete.

“When you are Class 1 competing with Class 4 and Class 5,” Zoughaib added, “I look at the numbers compared to Class 1 in the state. Where we finished is the least of my concern.”

On the girls’ side, Ella Bertram was the gold standard in the shot put, going 10.3 meters, .11 meters better than Emma Duennne of Cape Notre Dame. Bertram also earned fifth in the discus with a toss of 23.69m.

(Keep in mind, events are now measured in metric equivalents.)

Hailey Wiebrecht was fifth in the long jump with a leap of 4.39 meters, and she sixth in the triple jump — marking at 8.7 meters. Teammate Callee Naeger was eighth in the high jump (1.22m).

Sam Loida was second in the 200-meter (29.21), fourth in the 400 dash (1:05.88) and sixth in the 100 dash (14.41).

Picking up from a successful cross country season, Camryn Basler was fifth in the 800 run (2:45.78). Teammate Katie Kertz contributed, taking seventh in the 300 hurdles (1:01.59) and seventh in the pole vault (1.8m).

Both of Valle’s 1,600-meter relay teams produced medal-winning finishes, with the boys third (3:42.46) and the girls fourth (4;42.68). The boys’ 400-meter relay team was third (46.54) and the girls sixth (1:01.15). The 800-meter relay quartets were both sixth, with girls clocking in at 2:10.51 and boys 1:42.22.

Luke McClure blazed to a time of 23.84 in the 200 dash, which was 0.3 behind event winner James Milgie of The Whitfield School. He also was second in the 100 dash (11.81).

Cory Stoll was third in the 200-meter dash (24.10), third in the 100 dash (11.84) and he produced a fourth-place finish in the long jump, with a mark of 6.04 meters. Josh Hoog earned fourth in the 800-meter run (2:08.20).

Jordan Bales and Sam Drury both provided the Warriors points in the 300-meter high hurdles, with respective fifth- (47.15) and seventh-place finishes (47.75). Eli Fallert was in a tie for eighth place in the pole vault (2.44m),

Mitchell Meyer and Braden Coleman helped the Warriors “double up” in points in 400-meter dash. Meyer was second (55.54) and Coleman fourth (57.11). Coleman also was eighth in the triple jump (10.8).

The Warriors opened up the meet with a fifth-place finish in the girls’ 3,200 relay (11:29.23) and the boys were sixth in the same event (9:15.28).