For only the 2nd time ever, and the first time since 1998, our Owosso girls are the Flint Metro League track and field champions! After beating Goodrich in a dual meet last week for a regular season perfect record, we still entered the conference championship meet as underdogs to Goodrich. On paper, Goodrich was supposed to beat us by around 10 points or so. However, as has been the case this entire season, our Trojans stepped up and showed what they are made of. Event after event our girls stepped up and overachieved, turning our would be loss into a staggering 32 point win! To say that I am proud of what we were able to do on Friday would be an understatement. I am in absolute awe of this team and how much they wanted this. I would like to extend a huge thank you to my 3 co-coaches for their roles in this victory. Coach Gillett's girls finished 1st and 3rd in shot put, and 1st and 6th in discus. Coach Grinnell's pole vaulters took 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place! Coach Crandell's girls broke up the distance powerhouse that is Goodrich with finishes of 2nd and 4th in the 3200, 3rd in the 1600, 4th and 6th in the 800, and 2nd in the 4x800 relay. 

When it comes to individual results, we had some very impressive performances. However, none were bigger than Peyton Spicer's three conference championships! Peyton put on an absolute spectacle on Friday. She began her day by winning high jump with a jump of 5'0". She then shocked the field by throwing a 2 and a half foot PR in shot put and winning the event (33'2.5"). That throw also puts her just 1.5 inches out of 2nd place in the region. Peyton's third stop of the evening was her debut in long jump, where despite never have doing before, she was able to earn a 4th place finish with a jump of 13'11.5". Her 4th event (all field events!) was discus, where Peyton added another foot to her PR and won with a toss of 105'2". A truly impressive performance for a remarkable young lady.

The next most impressive performance of the night was the collective group of our pole vaulters. They stole the show by taking 21 of the 31 points of the event, including 2nd-5th place. Even after running in the 4x100m relay and 400m dash (with a PR time and 5th place finish of 1:04.29), Claire Agnew still managed to tie her PR with a vault of 11'6". Claire nearly made it over 12' and is ready for big things in the next few weeks. Finishing in third place with a PR vault of 10'6" was Libby Summerland (more on Libby later). 4th place went to Kyle Bermudez with a season record tying vault of 8'6". Finally, with a PR of 7'6", first year vaulter Isabel Root took the 5th spot.

Linden's coach said it best when he referred to Libby Summerland as a Swiss Army knife. The girl can do anything. When the meet was over, she had done just that. Libby finished with four 3rd place finishes on the day. Libby vaulted a PR 10'6", ran a 200m PR of 27.38, a season record 100m time of 13.85 (.01 from 2nd place), and her second fastest 400m with a time of 1:00.66, which is a half a second faster than the time required to qualify to run at the state meet if she does it at regionals next week. 

Kyle Bermudez keeps getting better and better. As mentioned earlier, she finished 4th in pole vault, but that wasn't her best performance. Kyle finished 3rd with her teammates (Claire Agnew, Gabi Hufnagel, and Khloe Muzzy) in the 4x100m relay, and 3rd in long jump with a jump of 14'4.5". Her most impressive finish however, was in the 100m hurdles. A week after a breakout meet in the event, Kyle cut even more time with a 2nd place finish and PR of 17.03. That run seeds Kyle 3rd in the region, but she beat the current 2nd place seed head to head by .01, setting up quite the showdown next week at regionals for a chance to compete in the state finals.

The toughest girl at the meet on Friday has to be none other than Emma Crandell. I did to Emma what I said I would never do to an athlete. She ran the 4x800m relay, the 800m, the 1600m, and the 3200m all in the same meet. I put her through the gauntlet and she didn't complain a single time. Not only did she run the furthest 4 distance events, she came away with two 2nd place finishes, a 3rd, and a 4th. Emma started the evening earning 2nd team all-conference honors in the 4x800m relay with teammates Emma Johnson, Onna West, and Natalie Summerland. She then finished 3rd in the mile with a 10 second PR of 5:36.41. Next she finished 4th in the 800m with a PR time of 2:38.97. Finally, even after all of that, Emma still had enough left to finish 2nd place in the 3200m with a time of 12:26.55. 

In addition to her legs in the 3rd place 4x100m and 4x400m (with teammates Emma Johnson, Claire Agnew, and Natalie Summerland) relays, Gabi Hufnagel had a strong performance in the 300m hurdles, finishing 2nd and earning 2nd team all conference honors with a time of 51.88.

Desiree Mofield had a great day in the throws and earned herself all conference honorable mention honors in shot put with a 3rd place throw of 31'2". She then was able to finish 6th in discus with a personal best toss (by nearly 6 feet) of 81'2".

In addition to earning 2nd team all conference honors as mentioned earlier in the 4x800m relay, Onna West had 2 more scoring performances. First, she took 6th place in the 800 with a season best time of 2:46.9. Next, Onna finished 4th place in the 3200m run with PR time of 13:40.34.

Full Results can be found at https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/meet/486086/results/all