Eureka Vandal track team headed to state 

The Eureka Vandal track team, coached by Geoffrey Bryan, assisted by Giovani Minoletti, secured its place in the NIAA 1A State Championship May 17-18 in Carson City. This past weekend, athletes from Eureka County High School competed at the NIAA Northern 1A Regional Championship, also held in Carson City. 

The following is a list of state qualifiers and their respective events:

Women’s Varsity

• 100 meters
  • 5th place – Victoria Hage, 13.59
• 200 meters
  • 2nd place – Victoria Hage, 27.47
• 400 meters
  • 2nd place – Brooke Watts, 1:03.95
• Long jump
  • 2nd place – Victoria Hage, 14-06.00
• Triple jump
  • 1st place – Victoria Hage, 30-08.00
• 100-meter hurdles
  • 4th place – Shay Hooper, 21.04
  • 5th place – Brooke Watts, 21.10
• 300-meter hurdles
  • 2nd place – Brooke Watts, 56.08

Men’s Varsity

• Shot put
  • 3rd place – Nicholas Blanco, 37-10.00
• 200 meters
  • 3rd place – Nathan Tudor, 25.60
• 400 meters
  • 4th place – Nathan Tudor, 55.25
• 1600 meters
  • 4th place – Joseph Minoletti, 5:07.56
• High jump
  • 4th place – Joseph Minoletti, 5-08.00
• 110-meter hurdles
  • 5th place – Alexander McKay, 18.81
• 300-meter hurdles
  • 5th place – Alexander McKay, 45.87
• 4 x 200 relay
  • 5th place – Alexander McKay, Hunter Pritchett, David Sanders, Bryan Hage, 1:45.71
• 4 x 400 meters
  • 5th place – Alexander McKay, Bryan Hage, Nathan Tudor, Liam Sullivan, 4:04.16

Coach Bryan, who lives in Duckwater, Nevada, has been a teacher for 29 years. He attended Haskell Indian Junior College in Lawrence, Kansas, and obtained his teaching degree in South Dakota. He has taught mathematics for  28 years and social studies for the last three. He started his teaching career in Rosebud, South Dakota, at the Rosewood Reservation School and at Todd County High School, where he also coached football, track and basketball. He went on to teach in Riverside, California, for three years at the Sherman Indian High School and spent five years working for the Riverside County School District at Moreno Valley Middle School. He coached every year that he taught.

Before starting his career at Eureka County High School, Bryan coached track in Gabbs, Nevada, and spent eight years in Lund, Nevada, coaching football, baseball and track. This is his ninth year of coaching track in Eureka. Seventeen student athletes comprise the team this year. 

Bryan said, “You have to know every event to be effective (when coaching track at a small school). At larger schools, you usually coach only one event.”