Grand Valley, Rifle host track meets

PARACHUTE, Colorado — Usually Saturdays are the big days for high school track and field meets.

Not this week.

Today and Friday, area track and field athletes will be competing at the Grand Valley and Rifle Invitationals, respectively, and taking the day off on Saturday.

The Cardinals will kick off the busy week with their home six-team meet in Parachute beginning at 3 p.m. today. Grand Valley head coach Sean Rice has a roster full of talented athletes looking to defend their home track against teams like Soroco and DeBeque.

In distance, there is Brandi Kreig, a freshman who not only qualified for state in the 3,200-meter run last week in Palisade, but also set a school record with a time of 12:47.47, will be looking for titles in the 3,200 and 1,600. Senior Emmy Adkins will look to lead the Cardinal girls in sprints, while fellow senior Kendall Babler is scheduled to run in hurdles and relays.

For the boys, Rice is looking to Jared Tonder to continue his stellar performance hurdling.

“He has just been tearing it up in both the 110 and 300,” he said of Tonder. “I don’t think he’s finished lower than third this season.”

Rice is also hoping to see good marks from sprinter Jon Lantz, all-around athlete and triple jumper Matt Zollars and the speedy Colton Cowan, who is splitting time between the Grand Valley track and baseball teams this spring.

18 teams coming to Rifle

RIFLE, Colorado — Teams from all over the Western Slope will be flocking to the Rifle Invitational track meet on Friday, all looking to add a few more to their state qualifiers lists.

In all, 18 teams will join the Bears ranging from Class 2A to 5A. Teams include: Basalt, Battle Mountain, Cedaredge, Coal Ridge, Delta, Eagle Valley, Fruita Monument, Glenwood Springs, Grand Valley, Hayden, Meeker, Moffat County, Montrose, Palisade, Plateau Valley, Rifle, Roaring Fork, Soroco and Steamboat Springs.

For the Bears, senior Hazen Moss is the only Rifle runner with an invitation to state as he qualified last week in the 400. Rifle head coach Jerry Shafer is hoping more can join him on Friday.

“Our 4X400 boys relay is close and Tyler Chapman could do it in the 800 if things go right for him,” Shafer said.

For the first time ever, Rifle will have pole vaulting as part of the meet. James Martinez, Abram Dennis and Kyle Zumbranen will all be competing in the event and have been hitting 12 feet in practice.

“That’s pretty impressive for their first year pole vaulting,” Shafer said.

On the girls side, the Rifle girls relays will be gunning for more top finishes. Shafer said the speediest one is the 4X400 and hopefully Cammi Castillo, who has been nursing a sore hamstring, can return to run a leg in it.

Shafer is hoping to be able to watch the entire meet, but with a pregnant wife due any day, knows sometime he will be getting a very important phone call that could draw him away from the meet.

“It is a very exciting time,” Shafer said.

The meet is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.