Box Elder qualified 11 boys for the high school 3A state track and field finals at Brigham Young University.
"Eleven winners," declared Coach Galen Carlile, who'd been looking around nervously at the rest of the field for hours and said he wouldn't relax until the state-championship trophy actually rested in his boys' hands, despite a fairly convincing 75-54 advantage over runner-up Dixie.Third went to Ogden with 51; the Tigers lost their chance at second with a fall on the final relay.
"Possession is nine-tenths of the law," Carlile laughed, while awaiting presentation of the trophy he hadn't really expected to win. He'd figured the Bees would be in the top four to six.
The lead belonged to a couple of teams before Box Elder finally took charge, starting with first and third in the 100 meters (Kevin Welch, Steven James) and first in the 4 x 100 relay in the morning, with Welch anchoring.
"We talked about having a good start (for the day)," said Carlile.
Joe Garvin added first in the 800 meters for the champions, and he and Garvin ran legs on the 4 x 400 relay that placed second - .03 second behind Spanish Fork.
The Dons ran 3:27.64, and Box Elder, which didn't need the points by then, had 3:27.67.
In the 3A girls meet, there was no suspense. Springville cleaned house.
The Red Devils took a 14-10 lead Friday and padded it to a 107-64 final over Pine View with Box Elder third at 37.
"More than we thought we'd get," said Coach Doug Bills, calling his sprint team the big surprise and crediting former Springville great Melanie (Child) Barker for coaching the runners into big numbers. It was her 1984-85 class that started the Springville tradition to which the 1990 group returned, Bills said.
Freshman Mindy Englund won both the 100 and 200 meters and participated in a winning 4 x100 relay.
Springville won the medley relay by 10 seconds and got another first out of junior Heather Witney, who won the 800 meters for the third straight year. It took 1-2 in the 200 (Englund and Tesha Harvey) and the 800 (Witney and Kristin Shaw).
Friday, the Bees' Jay Karlinsey broke his own pole-vault record, setting the mark at 15-foot-1; Saturday no one came close to records in either meet.
Wasatch's Diana Besendorfer won both the 100- and 300-meter hurdles, and Spanish Fork took 1-2 in the long jump, with Laura Olsen repeating her title and Lori Hansen second.
In the boys, the meet's closest race was in the 300-meter hurdles, with Bountiful's Philip Tate timed in 39.88 seconds and Nathan Tervort of Payson clocked in 39.89. Tervort took the 110 hurdles title.
Ben Lomond took 1-2 in the 3,200 meters Friday with brothers Warren and Chris Jones.
Dixie had first and second in the long jump Friday with Justin Esplin and Tom Brown staking the Flyers to the early team lead.