PHS hosts track meet; Lady Huskies win at Beggs
Athletes from more than a dozen area high schools took part in the annual Pawhuska Invitational Track and Field Meet, which was held Tuesday at Ormand Beach Memorial Stadium. (Results from the local meet will be reported in next week’s edition.)
Last Friday, the PHS track and field squads of Coach Mark Frye competed in the Bill Wylie Invitational at Beggs High School. Sophomore stalwarts Haley Mouser and Sarah Phillippi of the Lady Huskies both captured gold medals at the meet. Three of the PHS girls’ relay squads also hit the board.
Mouser took first in the high jump by a four-inch margin. Her winning leap of five feet, two inches matched the height she cleared for a fourth-place finish at last year’s Class 3A state meet. Mouser has won the high jump at three three straight meets this season.
Phillippi claimed first in the 300-meter hurdles with a personal-best time of 49.83 seconds. Her time was a little more than a second faster than her closest rival at Beggs. (It also was the fastest this season for a 3A competitor.) The hurdling victory was the first of the year for Phillippi, who qualified to state in the event as a freshman.
The Lady Huskies’ 4x100 relay team placed a strong second, just .29 of a second behind winners from Tulsa McLain (52.72 seconds). PHS’s 400-meter unit of Whitney Cotton, Kortney Barnhart, Darienne Frye and Phillippi cruised home less than a second ahead of the third- and fourth-place squads.
Pawhuska’s 4x200 squad came in fifth, behind the sprinters from Millwood, whose season-best time of 1:49.25 was nearly eight seconds ahead of Pawhuska and more than three second quicker the runnerup Metro. The local 4x800 squad managed a sixth-place finish in 12:44.86 — well off the sizzling 10:50.63 pace set by the winners from Wagoner.
PHS senior Darian Lookout cleared seven feet in the pole vault, which put her in fourth place behind a pair of 7-6 efforts and a meet-best vault of nine feet by the Beggs’ entry. Lookout finished seventh at the 2013 state 3A meet with a clearance of eight feet.
The Pawhuska girls compiled 46 points to finish sixth in the team standings, trailing first-place Chisholm (95 points) and runner-up Wagoner (94), as well as Tulsa McLain (54), Metro Christian (53) and Bristow (51). OKC Millwood piled up 104 points to claim the boys’ title by 18 over second-place Chisholm.
One member of the Huskies boys squad earned a medal at Beggs. PHS newcomer Warren Graves was runnerup in the 200-meter dash. His time of 23.81 seconds was just a half second off the lead.
Next Tuesday, April 15, the Pawhuska track teams are to compete in Vinita. On Saturday, April 19, the squads will be heading to Chandler for the Route 66 Classic.