McDermitt High School’s Ben Draunidalo ran to a silver medal last Saturday at the Lowry Invitational Track Meet in Winnemucca in the 100 meters with a time of 11.58 seconds.
He settled for bronze in the 200 meters (23.99) and teamed up with Jagger Hinkey, Robert Pope, and Alex Navarro (47.67) in the 4x 100 meter relay for a fourth place finish.
“It is just like coming out of our backdoor to come to Winnemucca,” MHS track and field coach Richard Egan said. “Our kids are setting PR’s (personal records) here and getting ready for regionals. We are going to jockey our kids into different events to give them a better shot at making it to state, but we have to get by regionals first.”
Hinkey had personal records in the shot put with a toss of 41 feet, 11 inches to finish fifth and also in the discus (121-1) for a sixth-place finish. Hinkey leapt to an eighth place finish (35-8.5) in the triple jump.
“Jagger shattered his own PR today, and Ben continues to improve,” Egan said.
Andrew Villalobos, Steele Crossley, Navarro and Pope teamed up for a fifth place finish (1:47.06) in the 4x200 meter relay.
“I heard a lot of nice compliments from other coaches here today about our team. It has been a while since I have heard anything like that,” Egan said.
Navarro had a personal best (2:17.78) to finish sixth in the 800 meters and Enrique Villalobos, Andrew Villalobos and Pope all had personal records as well.
“I think we are sitting pretty good for next week,” Egan said. “We just might be bringing some regional champs back to McDermitt. We will take it as it comes for us, but we are working hard and we are going to make a good push.”
The Northern 1A/2A/3A Regional Championships will be held at Churchill County High School in Fallon this weekend.
“We have had a good season," Egan said. "We are having a lot of fun and liking our PR’s. Our season is going by way too fast for us, but we are still enjoying it. I think we have made big progress from our first meet to today.”
The top four finishers in each event advance to the NIAA State Tournament at Desert Oasis High School in Las Vegas on May 17-18.
“I have enjoyed the season," Egan said. "It was very fun and I hope our road doesn’t end next weekend down in Fallon. I want our kids to push and be better; bring something back to McDermitt and make ourselves proud again.”
