Chucking Huskies shine at Horizon Relay Invitational

DENVER – From: Rob Parish, Battle Mountain track coach.To: Fred Koetteritz, Huskies athletic director.Re: New equipment.”Hey, Fred,” Parish writes. “We got any money in the budget for some javelins?”Yes, Huskies track and field had another first at Saturday’s Horizon Relay Invitational – Battle Mountain competed in the javelin for the first time in school history.And, they did it well. (As for your question of how the javelin can be contested at a relay meet, you have a valid point. In the field events, the top-three field results from your school in each event are totaled up and then ranked with other teams.)The Huskies, never having touched a spear before, finished fourth.”It’s not a standard Colorado state event,” Parish said. “They threw it in. We had three javelin throwers who had never touched a javelin. The three of them got fourth. We’d like a new javelin-toss area plus javelins of different weights and sizes.”Zach Steinbach is your new Huskies school-record holder with a toss of 99 feet, 1 inch. Colby Austin went 88-1 and Elan Jones threw for 82-4.The Huskies also experienced the distance relay for the first time. Freshman Ryan Hendrick ran the 400 portion; T.J. Simpson the 800; Corey Wilson the 1200 and Jonathan Stevens the mile.All told, they finished 10th in 12 minutes, 4 seconds. The bookend freshmen were particularly eye-opening. Hendrick ran his 400 in 56.3 and Steven ran his first mile in 4:57.”Those two freshmen ran out of their minds,” Parish said.In the more conventional realm of things, the Huskies boys 3200 relay team is sizzling. Shea Phelan, Travis Landauer, Zach Erickson and Grant Stevenson posted an 8:31, two seconds off the school record. That finish was good for third.Steinbach put up a personal record in the shot put with a 41-10. In all, the guys finished 10th out of 23 teams in a field which mostly was constituted of 5A teams.For the girls, Katie Lindbloom ran an 18.9 in the 100 hurdles and Meagan Reigel posted a PR with a time of 19.3 in the same event. Kelly Scholl flew 24-8 in the triple jump. Rebecca Richardson soared 13-4 in the long jump and Jenna Bandeventer posted a PR in the 800 portion of the distance medley with a 3:03.The girls 800 relay team of Jane Lettovska, Richardson, Lindbloom and Reigel took 11th, punching in at 2:01.Battle Mountain is next at West Grand April 2. There is no word yet whether Parish and company will have ordered javelins by then.Sports Editor Chris Freud can be reached at 949-0555, ext. 614 or cfreud@vaildaily.com.Vail, Colorado