By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
Yukon has come accustomed to competing in tough track meets.
The Central Oklahoma Athletic Conference, the Edmond Deer Creek, Edmond Santa Fe and of course their own Miller Track Classic to name a few.
So the Class 6A Region 4 meet won’t be anything new to the Millers and Millerettes, except for one thing. Earning berths to the state track meet.
Yukon heads to Duncan on Saturday for the meet (which will also host a class 5A meet) that begins at 10 a.m.
The Millers are in the meet with Edmond Memorial, Norman North, Lawton, Putnam City North, U.S. Grant, Mustang and Moore.
“This week, our attention turns to the most important meet of the year, the regional meet,” Miller head coach Matt Parent said. We will start tapering our workouts back this week in order for our runners to be fully recovered and ready to go. The only way to the state meet is through the regional meet. The previous eight meets really mean nothing in the state of Oklahoma. It comes down to how and individual performs on this one day.”
The Millers and Millerettes will have a tough task, but should qualifying events in the sprints, middle distance and distance as well as field events.
“Obviously, Memorial is the favorite in the team race, but, again, the individual performance is ultimately what matters,” Parent said. “Yukon, Memorial, Lawton, and Norman North will be strong in the sprints. Also, Memorial, Mustang, and Yukon will have a strong showing in the middle distance/distance area.
“The hurdles will be crazy at this regional,” he said. “There are eight of the top 15 hurdlers placed in the same region, so someone will not make it out. Because of the state’s rules, I’m fairly sure that the bottom end of the hurdle placers will run faster than other regional’s automatic qualifiers. However, these are the rules, so you just have to live with them and hope that your runner isn’t the odd one out.
“This will be a competitive regional for sure. All of us wish we could just fast forward, and get to it. Hopefully, when each individual steps of the track Saturday, they can smile and hold their head high knowing they did their best.”
The Millerettes go into the regional with one of the best trio of pole vaulters in the state in Kyla Davis, Kenadi Hamilton and Maycie Reed. The trio swept the COAC meet and have placed one, two, three in five meets this year.
The Millerettes are also looking to earn state berths in the 300 hurdles and some of the distance events.
“We are looking forward to going to regionals,” Millerette coach Rod Zimmerman said. “It will be tough to advance out of, but sets up pretty reasonably for the girls in most events.
“We will have some good workouts the first few days this week and them taper off the rest of the week and let their bodies recover so they can go out and have the best performances they can and see where things fall,” he added.
