A Grand Opening At Grand Valley


Grand Valley's Shaya Chenoweth (lane 3) and Jordyn Pittman (lane 4) give the homestanding Cardinals a 1-2 sweep in the 100.


Parachute - The mantra for the Grand Valley High School girls 800 sprint medley relay team going into Tuesday's christening of their new track was, "There's only one first first."

The Cardinals put together their best medley team and won the first event of their first home meet in "15 years," according to the announcer.

"When we looked at the heat sheets we knew if would be pretty cool if we could win the first event on our new track," said senior Kylyn Rigsby. "We also realized we could go after our school record, but we just missed that."

Although Rigsby and company's 1:59.05 did not get on the school record board, they did move up to No. 10 in the Class 3A rankings. Having a ranked relay and a team mindset is a new thing for Rigsby.

"At our first meet my mom pointed out to me that we were in third or fourth (as a team) and I had no idea," said Rigsby. "Before this year it was me and Shaya (Chenoweth) scoring, but coach mentioned now how we should approach entries and meets with what's best for the team."

Between Rigsby (first in the 300 hurdles, 49.62 and high jump, 4-11, and fifth in the 200, 29.16) Chenoweth (first in the 100, 13.39 and long jump, 16-07.75, and third in the 200, 28.38) and new addition freshman Jordyn Pittman, (first in the 200, 27.69, and 400, 1:03.39, and second in the 100, 13.54) the Cardinals have the talent to make some noise at meets where quality matters more than quantity.

In the mix with Grand Valley's top trio was DeBeque's sophomore, Jentry Largent, who is establishing herself as one of the state's top 1A sprinters. Largent did not improve on seasonal bests (see conditions below) but her second place in the 200 (28.06) and third in the 100 (13.71) show that she is capable to be in the mix in among Western Slope sprinters this spring. In addition, she has some speedy sidekicks as DeBeque's 4x100 and 4x200 relays have posted top-three times in 1A.

The meet conditions were not ideal for great times in the sprints, especially after the sun went down and wind shifted to fight competitors on the home stretch. By the time the 4x400s started, the temperature had dropped to just 5 degrees above freezing.

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