All they do is win: Jefferson Academy, Holy Family and Longmont rake in gold at state track
May 18—LAKEWOOD — A friendly rivalry has been brewing all season long between two girls hurdlers just a few miles apart. On Saturday morning during the state track and field championships at JeffCo Stadium, it all finally came to an acme with three ladies in and around Boulder County ascending to the very top of the podium.
Jefferson Academy senior Emilee Harding finally attained the gold she had been chasing for the past four years in the Class 3A 100-meter hurdles. In doing so, she clocked in at a personal-best 14.96 seconds, beating her old time by a smooth 0.3 seconds.
Her teammate, Jessica Schaffer, trailed just behind at 15.22 to nab the silver, followed directly by Peak to Peak's Kourtney Rathke at 15.27. Each one, Harding said, pushed her toward her high school career-ending success.
"Kourtney, I've been seeing her times all year. She's definitely been, probably, my top competitor all year aside from Jessie, my teammate," Harding said. "I feel like I've been chasing her all year. It's been a lot of fun, just trying to beat those times. Getting in the starting line, what was kind of going through my head was like, 'This is my last race, you know. I got to put it all out there.' If I win, that's great. But if I don't, I've had an amazing season running against these girls."
Harding had been on the precipice of a state title the past two seasons, but something always got in the way. During her sophomore season, weather moved the finals to Sunday, which conflicted with her religious beliefs.
Last year, she fell off during the finals despite a strong seed coming out of prelims. Now, she can enter college on top of the 3A 100 hurdles scene in Colorado.
"I was talking to my mom this morning," Harding said. "She was like, it's just the icing on the cake. You've had an amazing four years, and getting that state title — you've been working for this wonderful experience and now you've got it."
The end of a reign
For the past few seasons, the name Kourtney Rathke has become synonymous with excellence. Saturday was no different for the Peak to Peak standout.
Following a 3A state meet record in the pole vault on Friday, and another gold in the triple jump on Thursday, Rathke added one more medal to her already-hefty arsenal. Naturally, it came in another field event, long jump, which she claimed with a leap of 18 feet, 9 inches.
And that mark wasn't even close to her personal best of 20 feet, 1 inch.
"It feels amazing. I mean, it's a great way to end my senior year, high school career. I didn't quite go as far as I would have wanted, but it's OK," Rathke said. "I kind of would just go in long jump and I would just get excited with little PRs. I wasn't really ever expecting to jump 20 feet in high school, but this season, that kind of became plausible."
Rathke credited her improvement in the long jump to added strength and speed and will head to the University of Michigan next year with the hopes of raking in a few more medals.
A gift from above
The bar was already extremely high for Holy Family's girls 4×100 relay team, but on Saturday afternoon the ladies took it to another level.
Having already set the 3A state meet record at 48.52 seconds in the prelims on Friday, the quartet of Kylie Schlepp, Claire Tannehill, Alexis Mendlik and Bella Rossi won out again with a 48.80 in the finals.
They owed much of that success to their former coach, Steve Blair, who the Tigers said goodbye to during his memorial service on Thursday. Blair, who died from pancreatic cancer, spent decades as a Holy Family track coach and emphasized the importance of relays.
"We definitely won it for Holy Family. We won it for coach Blair. He's kind of been the thing keeping us going. We miss him a lot, for sure," Mendlik said. "He was the first person that ever taught me anything about relays. He was there on my first day of track, and I don't think I would have kept going if it wasn't for him.
"We know Kylie's got a fantastic start. We know our handoffs are always butter. They're always really good. We owe that a lot to coach Blair as well. He was always a stickler for that. Claire, she's our fastest leg. She makes the best stagger. I love that curve, and then Bella finishes off strong."
A champion through and through
A giant setback during Griffin Eastman's senior season at Holy Family wasn't going to stop him from achieving a state crown. As a matter of fact, it didn't stop him from achieving two, just months apart.
First, Eastman took part in the Tigers' Class 3A state football berth, albeit from the sidelines, before attaining an individual gold at JeffCo Stadium on Saturday. He edged out North Fork's Danny Owens by a narrow margin of 0.09 seconds to win the 100-meter dash, with a finishing time of 10.90 seconds.
Later in the day, he and his 4×100 relay squad that included Adam Tapp, Johnathan Nguyen and Nate Welch, just barely missed out on another crown, instead falling second to University's championship-worthy mark of 42.99. The Tigers' time was 43.04.
"I came back from a knee injury that happened in the fall, so I'm nine months post-op," Eastman explained. "It felt really good to be able to get back and go win that. I tore my ACL and meniscus playing football."
A hop, skip and a jump
When Longmont junior Teagan Malcolm came rushing past the finish line, first among the Class 4A boys 300-meter hurdlers, his red curls stood out among the crowd.
So did his time of 38.38 seconds, a good 0.13 seconds ahead of silver medalist Teddy Rauchway. In doing so, he recorded a PR of about 0.4 seconds. His work on his starts, he said, paid off the most.
"It just feels amazing. It's a great PR for me. I'm just so happy to be here. I just wanted to go out as hard as I could, leave everything on the track, last race of the season," Malcolm said. "That's what I did. I hit faster steps than I had all season in the first four hurdles. Then I just went out and finished it."
