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It is that time in the track world where the “tough get going.”
Most athletes with any talent have it as their goal to reach the state track meet. That is what is currently happening in the Dripping Springs High School world of track. Students have gotten past the district and area meets to earn their spots at the regional meet and then state. Dripping Springs has some quality athletes as per usual and will be sending 14 athletes to the regional meet.
The area meet consists of the top four places from the two districts (Conference 6A, Districts 25 and 26) competing for the top four places in area to get the trip to regional. The Lady Tigers placed fifth with 60 points, and the Tigers were seventh with 37. Four school records were lowered.
One of broken records needs to be explained: Gunnar Betts in the 100. He set the record under FAT era. That stands for fully automatic time which takes the human error out of timing. However, there was a time when most meets were hand-timed, which meant the competitor accepted the result whether correct or not and went into the books as records.
Sophia Farris highlighted the meet for the Tigers by qualifying for regionals in three events and capturing area championships in the 100- and 300-meter hurdles. Farris set a school record in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 14.428 to break a 15-year-old DSHS standard. In the 300-meter hurdles, she timed 43.36 for the championship sweep. Farris also finished fourth in the long jump with a leap of 17 feet and a quarter inch.
In the pole vault, Ian Jones captured the area title with a height of 14 feet six inches. Mai Zimmerman took home fourth place for the Tigers after clearing 10 feet to also punch a ticket to the region meet.
Ava Williamson claimed first place and set a school record in the high jump with a leap of 5 feet seven inches. In 2022, Williamson was a ninth-place finisher at the UIL 5A State Meet. Tomsen Vickery qualified for regionals following a runner-up finish in the discus with a throw of 159 feet two inches.
On the track, the girls’ 4x200-meter relay of Arantza Gil, Kaleigh Howell, Ellie Hodsden and Chloe Fredenburg recorded a second-place finish with a schoolrecord time of 1:43.94 to earn a regional berth. The boys’ 4x200 relay team of Gunnar Betts, Garon Duncan, Boston Papp and Nick Tyndall also earned a qualifying spot with a fourth-place finish in 1:30.22.
In the 300-meter hurdles, Gage Groce rounded out the regional qualifiers by finishing first with a time of 38.58.
The Region IV-6A Meet will be held April 28-29 at Heroes Stadium in San Antonio.
