By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
EDMOND – Learning on the run.
A young Yukon track team took its first test of the season and came away with a sixth place finish in the Edmond Santa Fe Invitational, Wednesday.
The Millers scored 78 points on the day with their best finish a second in the 4×100 relay.
“I thought we competed well overall,” Miller head coach Matt Parent said. “We have such a young team, so you never know how they will react to a meet with quite a few of the power teams in it.
“When you combine that with our coaches knowing that we aren’t where we normally would be right now as far as our conditioning goes because of losing two weeks due to weather and another two weeks because of moving back the start date of the second semester, our coaches decided to limit the number of events most of our athletes were in,” he said. “We used the meet to just get times on kids and to work on certain events. As we develop, we will incorporate more events and combinations. We in no way were trying to maximize points for this meet.”
The Millers did have two third place finishes and two fourth place finishes to go with the one silver medal.
The 4×100 relay team of Chaz Bradley, Makari Slaughter, Ezra Johnson and Jesse Eakers had a chance to win the gold. The Millers were in the lead when Eakers took the baton for the final leg. About halfway into the final leg, Eakers cramped up, but held on to finish second. The team ran a time of 44.79 seconds.
Johnson also had a third place finish in the 100-meter dash in a time of 11.29 and Slaughter was fifth in 11.42. Eldridge was fourth in the 200 in 23.35 seconds.
Zach Cantwell had the other third place medal, in the discus with a throw of 135.03. Matt Werschem was fourth in the shot with a 44-4 heave and Austin Johnson was fifth with a 43-6 throw.
“In the throws, I was really happy with Zach in the discus as well as Matt and Austin in the shot put.,” Parent said. “Those three placed and threw about what I expected them to throw. They now have a good starting point and will be looking to improve steadily.
“I also was very pleased with our sprint group,” he added. “We placed second in the 4×1 but Jesse caught a cramp halfway to the finish line. He was able to finish the race, but it did impact the performance. We were well on our way to winning it, so I know we are about where we need to be right now. We definitely have some issues with the hand offs that need to be cleaned up, but they did well.
In the 100, Ezra Johnson surprised all of us,” he added. “He placed 3rd in the event and really looked great doing it. In the 200, it was Christian Eldridge that impressed. He placed fourth and really looked strong throughout the race. In the 300 hurdles, Karis Antwine placed sixth. He also took seventh in the 110. He has a lot of room for improvement and will soon be a really good one for us.”
The 4×800 relay team of Austin Miller, Andrew Daggs, Kayden Chaparro and Max Marler finished fifth in a time of 9:13.25. Levi Cosgrove placed fifth in the pole vault with a wault of 112-6 and Keaton Hahn was sixth in the long jump at 20-11.5.Antwine ran a 45.49 time in the 110 hurdles.
