As the track season gets underway, the Jesuit Rangers team has shown that it is a force to be reckoning with. With the seniors leading the way, there has been much success and the bar has been set very high.
On January 18, the Ranger varsity track runners went down to Fayetteville, Arkansas to compete in the annual Arkansas Indoor Invitational. The bar was immediately set high as captain Andrew Pott ’14 took first place right away in the 800 meter race finishing with a stellar time of 1:56.
Chris McCall ’14 as well emerged as a front-runner in his hurdles race, finishing first, breaking the record in the 60 meter race that was set by Jesuit’s very own Ryan Mehl ’13, with a time of 8.37 seconds. In the mile race, distance runners Connor O’Neill ’17, captain Dillon Smith ’14, Gus Baldwin ’17, and John Garvey ’16 ran very well, finishing with personal records.
Sophomore captain Connor Garvey explained that the Arkansas Invitational was a big success. Garvey went on to say that “we were put up against some of the fastest runners in the nation and performed well against them, giving us a boost into the next set of meets.”
In the next meet, the varsity went to Texas Tech to compete with some of the state’s toughest competition, while the JV went to the Newman-Smith Invitational on February 15. Only a few of the varsity athletes went to Tech and this turned out to be a meet for these guys in which many records were broken.
Smith immediately set the tone when he finished first in the 3000 meter with a time of 9:17, beating the record which was actually previously
set by him. Senior captain Orion Salters dominated his 55 meter race finishing first with a time of 6.54 seconds.
Smith explained that “as soon as we started warming up, we were all ready to go and felt like we had a good shot of bringing home some hardware.” Smith went on to say that this was a huge momentum booster for his team and he believes that this will impact the team later on in the season.
McCall, once again, broke another record in the hurdles, this time in the 55 meter race with a time of 7.70 seconds. Pott won his 400 meter race with a record breaking time of 50.03 seconds, and he also won first place when his 4 X 400 meter team of captain Kellen McAlone ‘14, Salters, and McCall dominated their relay race and breaking a record.
On the field part of this meet, captain Trey Elliott ‘14 asserted his dominance finishing first in the shot put, and teammate Kyle Shannon ’14 finished fourth in this meet. This meet gave the team a ton of momentum, and the Rangers came home with five gold medals and two silvers after sending only nine athletes. McCall, in the 55 meter hurdles, and Salters, in the 55 hurdles race, are both ranked #1 in the state.
The JV also had a dominant race this day when they were at Newman-Smith. Connor O’Neill ’17 won his 3200 meter race with a time of 10:15 and Gus Baldwin had a solid fourth place finish with a time of 10:39. The Rangers 4 x 800 relay team finished third, consisting of O’Neill, Baldwin, Miles Burrow ’17, and Ethan Brownlee ’17.
Coach Doug Robinson, as expected, was very excited with the way both teams performed on this set of meets. He explained that the JV did very well and set early personal bests, while the varsity “performed at a very high level, winning five gold medals and breaking four school records.” Although these meets were successful for the Rangers, Robinson wished that both teams could’ve performed together, so they could feed off one another’s success.
In the meet for the Rangers this past Saturday, both the JV and Varsity were able to compete at the same place for the first time all season when they went to the McKinney Boyd Invitational.
This meet was very successful for the varsity, earning them a third place finish, trailing only to McKinney North and Allen. The biggest story of this meet was the Ranger Sprint Medley Relay of Chris McCall, Jared Uchereck ’14, Orion Salters and Andrew Pott, who finished with a time of 3:35. This first place finish, however, is not the biggest story, as this time has this relay team ranked #2 in the nation. Trey Elliot had a dominant discus throw of 156 feet, ranking him 17th in Texas and 33rd in the nation.
Kyle Shannon is very impressed with the way his team has performed throughout this short season stating that “the bar is very high now and the team has started to become much more competitive.” Shannon added that he believes this team has a good chance of winning district. Coach Robinson also has very high expectations and is interested to see what the team can do this year.
The Rangers next meet is this Saturday, March 1st, at the Coppell Invitational.
Thanks to Lynne McCall for the photos.
