The Kimball High Lady Longhorn Track Team opened the season with a runner-up team finish at the Bayard C-D Track, Invite on a postponed date of April 7. A powerful Lingle-Ft. Laramie team won the team title in the girl’s division scoring 119 points with Kimball second with 73.5 points. Behind the leaders were Bridgeport with 73, Gordon/Rushville 65, Bayard 49, Banner County 36, Crawford 35. Hay Springs 25, Sioux County 16, Southeast 11, Garden County 10, Pine Bluffs 7.5, Minatare 4, Ley ton 2. Candace Wollert of Lingle-Ft Laramie was voted the Girl’s Most Valuable Track Athlete after winning the 100, 200 and 400 meter runs. She tied the meet record in the 400 with her winning time of 59.2 and will now share that mark with Deb Quillen who set the mark in 1972 while competing for Dix some 37 years ago! The Kimball ladies had three gold medal performances on the day with Heather Dickson getting the lone individual performance win in the long jump with a winning leap of 16 feet 5 inch. She also ran a leg on the winning 4x100 relay team along with Whitney Lockwood, Hanna Stull, and Tori Hager as they clocked a winning time of 53.4 seconds. The other win for the Kimball ladies was the 4x800 relay with Megan Woods, Cierra Pederson Sadie Sullivan, and Kayli Rageth getting the gold with a time of 11:47.6. Miss Dickson also ran second in the 100 meters with a time of 13.2, and was fourth in the 400 in 1:05.6. Kimball has a fleet of sprinters back in fold as sophomore Tori Hager ran fifth in the 200 meters in 29.7 and sixth in the 100 meters in 13.4. Whitney Lockwood was second in the 200 in 29.2. Kayli Rageth ran fourth in both the 800 and 1600 meter runs with respective times of 2:49.4 and 6:30.9. Kaitlin Moritz, running her first complete flight of hurdles this spring, ran an excellent time of 17.6 to take third in the 100 meter hurdles. Kelby Dickerson was fourth in the pole vault at 6 feet 6 inches and Sam Long tied for sixth in the high jump at 4 feet 4 inches. Coach Larry Pahl commented on the opening performances of his Lady Horns, “The C-D meet at Bayard was a good first meet for us. We had a mixed bag of results. The throwers were disappointed in the marks they obtained and some runners had hoped for faster times. Overall I was pleased with the competitive spirit we showed in both the field events and on the track. We have a lot of technique to fix but it is all fixable and will improve. I think we set the bar of performance at a good height at this meet and we will have to work hard to raise the bar at each meet.” Coach Pahl went on to say that to place second at the Bayard meet was the best showing for a Kimball girl’s team in many years. “Last year we placed fourth at this meet and this year we scored 20 more points than a year ago. I think this definitely shows team improvement,” he said. “I was pleased with the first meet marks for the freshmen. Sadie Sullivan ran a personal best in the mile. Megan Woods stepped up and ran two good 800 meters in the open and relays. Kayli Rageth had better first meet times in both of the 800 and 1600 than she had last year. Heather Dickson starting the year with a 16 foot long jump was a great effort and her second place in the 100 was better than last year. I was pleased with the times and splits in all of the relays and our runners all gave great efforts. Sam Long started out in the high jump higher than last year. Both of our vaulters were competitive and 4 points was more than I had anticipated. Kaitlin Moritz ran a faster opening meet time that she did in last year’s first meet. All of our sprinters stepped up and scored big points for us as we expected they would. Whitney Lockwood had a good time in the 200. Our triple jumpers showed promise and with cleaning up some technique and developing more speed they will improve their marks” said Pahl. Pahl said the team has some nagging injuries that will reduce the work load of some of the athletes but he hopes they will be stronger by the conference meet this Saturday in Mitchell. Start time on Saturday is  listed as 1 p.m. The Kimball boys scored 24 points and finished eighth in a field of twelve teams. Gordon/Rushville won the boy’s division with 136 points followed by Pine Bluffs with 77, Banner County 76, Bayard 46, Crawford 44, Lingle Ft Laramie 37, Southeast 25, Kimball 24, Creek Valley 20, Garden County 17, Hay Springs 15, and Bridgeport 7. By vote of the coaches, Tyler Gifford of Banner County and Garrett Shall of Gordon/Rushville shared the Most Valuable Male Athlete award. Kimball coach Tom Perlinski said, “It was a typical first meet with some pleasant surprises and some areas where we need to improve and look at different events. The highlights were few with several missed practices and shortened practices because of the weather. Tyler Weisbrook was our only double medalist with a second in the shot and a fifth in the discus. Daniel Everston ran a good 3200 to place third, and Mark Mietus ran fourth in the 800”. It was a great start for Tyler Weisbrook and weight coach Dane Wurdeman said his shove of 41 feet 6 inches in the shot for second place was a career best and was nearly a foot better than his best throw of last season. His fifth place throw of 113 feet even in the discus was also equal to his all time best. Daniel Evertson ran third in the 3200 with a time of 11:44.9, and his 5:27 non-placing time in the 1600, were both improvements over his best times of a year ago. Mark Mietus ran fourth in the 800 in 2:16.6 and we can look for his times to get much better. Spencer Luppen failed to place in the 1600 but ran a much better time than any of his best races from a year ago. Coach Perlinski also cited Brock Tjosvold’s 300 hurdle time which was equal to his best from last season. “We had a good effort from all of our athletes and with better practice conditions we will see great improvement from week to week and meet to meet as the season progresses,” Perlinski said. Kimball also got fourth place points in the pole vault from freshman Daniel Valdez with a best vault of 8 feet 0 inches.