Eureka girls track and field team wins state; boys take fourth

The Eureka girls track and field team won the NIAA 1A State Track and Field Championships at Moapa Valley High School on Saturday, May17. 

“We knew if the girls did what they’re supposed to do, we’d win,” said Vandals track and field head coach Gio Minoletta. 

They did exactly that.

Sophomores Victoria Hage and Brooke Watts led the team by finishing first and second, respectively, in the 200 meters. Watts also won the 400-meter race and 300-meter hurdles. Hage finished second in the 100 meters and posted a personal best long jump of 15’7.5” to finish second.

Freshman Anna McKay ran a personal best 2:32.5 in the 800 meters to finish first by almost five seconds. Fellow freshman Sophia Dickover added a fourth-place finish in the 3,200-meter race to give the Vandals the team lead, which they never relinquished. McKay was less than a tenth of a second from winning the 100-meter hurdles and also finished second to her teammate, Watts, in the 300-meter hurdles.

“I’ve never had [the team] so powerful and so young with no seniors…so it’s really looking good for the future,” Minoletta said. He’s assisted Vandal track and field since 2017 and got to see his daughter’s team win state as a senior in 2019.

This season, his daughter Julia was coming off an ACL injury, so she wasn’t able to compete in the events she usually would or at the level she typically would. She’ll be the lone senior on the girls team next season. 

The Vandal boys took fourth, led by junior Joseph Minoletti. The coach’s nephew leapt 5’10 to take home the silver in the high jump. 

Junior Alexander McKay was third in the 110-meter hurdles and fourth in the 300-meter hurdles. He and Minoletti also anchored the second-place 4×200-meter relay team.

Sophomore Brody Sweet and junior Nathan Tudor finished fourth and fifth in the 200 meters, and fifth and sixth in the 100 meters, respectively. Tudor also finished third in the 400 meters, with sophomore teammate Preston Auch finishing right behind him in fourth. Sweet and Tudor joined Minoletti and McKay to finish second in the 4×400-meter relay. 

“Some things didn’t go our way, but they all worked hard and they did everything we expected and everything we asked,” Coach Minoletti said. 

Not having a cross-country team contributed to the boys’ fourth-place finish at state, Minoletti said, and it’s going to lead to some changes in his approach to coaching the team.

“We have a lot of long-distance boys, but we’re going to approach it differently next season with more distance running early and then taper it down towards the end of the season,” he said. 

He hopes it’ll lead to better finishes in long-distance events, giving the team a better chance to compete for a state championship.