— From Press staff reports
SKIATOOK – Tahlequah secured two individual first-place finishes en route to an overall third-place finish as a team at the Skiatook Invitational on Friday.
Adam Stovall won gold in the high jump with a leap of six feet, six inches while Billy Frye finished first in the long jump by stretching out for a total of 21 feet, 1/4 inches.
“Adam won the high jump – but not with a height we would have liked, but he and Quincy (McDowell) have both had very few practices with us since coming from basketball,” Tahlequah coach Bart Frank. “Billy is really the story of the day because he won the long jump with his first attempt of the year.
“We do not let him jump in practice because of the severity of the broken arm he suffered in the football season. All we work on with him is his run throughs to hit the board.”
The Tigers, who are off until March 26 when they will travel to East Central, recorded a third-place team finish with 50 points and came in behind Booker T. Washington (73.25) and Bartlesville (64). Rounding out the top five was Collinsville (49.75) in fourth and Oologah (45) in fifth.
In the 3,200-meter relay, Ben Grant, Derrick Young, Micah Holcomb and Mo Brown clocked a time of 8:50 for second place. And in the 400-meter relay, Frye, McDowell, Blake Elam and Stovall recorded a time of 45.25 seconds for fifth place.
In individual long-distance races, Rusty Fowler finished fourth in the 3,200-meter run with a time of 10:50. In the 1,600-meter run, Holcomb finished fourth (4:57) and Fowler recorded a fifth place finish (5:01).
“I was really pleased with our effort,” Frank said. “Coach (Jason) Proctor has our distance people on schedule. We had five runners in the top 11 in a field of about 40.”
The one sour note for the Tigers was the 1,600-meter relay team, which was disqualified for a lane violation.
“Had it not been for that (the disqualification),” Frank said, “we would have won the meet by 3/4 of a point.
“But I will trade the first-place medals and the team trophy for the effort those young men put out.”
