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Show P.C. High School sets two records in first track meet of the season . by Randy Hanskat Overcoming a variety of training difficulties, the Park City High School track team had its first meet of the season last Friday at Hill-crest Hill-crest High. Miner expectations expecta-tions were not overly high going into the meet with 4A Hillcrest and 4A Jordan, but the results, especially from sophomore Scott Tatum, were encouraging. Two Park City school records were shattered to lead the list of accomplishments; Bill Kahn, in his first year as Miner track coach, has assembled a team of 5030 girls and 20 boys to compete com-pete for Park City this season. He said he has been recruiting team members all year. But the training hasn't been easy in snow-covered Park City. "Friday was the first day on a track for most of the kids," Kahn said. All of the team's workouts have been held either on the roads of Park Meadows or in the school gym. Being on the track is a different situation, Kahn explained, because the turns can't really be practiced practic-ed on the streets of Park Meadows. Whereas some schools have indoor track facilities, the Miners have to use the gym or hallways when the weather won't allow outside workouts. "We can get two hurdles in the gym," Kahn laughed, "and three in the hall." Still no curves. In addition, Park City has no long jump pit. There is no pole-vaulting equipment. No javelin. No women's shot or discus. No no no. "What we need is an outside track," Kahn said. "As long as we kept it clear, a track would stay as free of snow as the roads in the area." The competition Friday was no pushover. Hillcrest was last year's state 4A track champion, and Kahn said West Jordan also has a strong team. Nevertheless, Park City athletes placed in the top four 12 times in the -15 events. Scott Tatum set a school record for the long jump, finishing third overall with a jump of 18 feet 3 and a half inches. The old record was 17 feet 9 inches. Kahn said it was the first time Tatum had jumped in an actual pit this year. Then Dave Van Luven set another record, running the mile in 5:01. Kahn predicts Van Luven will soon break the five-minute mark. Van Luven' s performance earned him fourth place. . Tatum finished his three events with three third-place ribbons. In addition to the long jump he entered the 110-meter high hurdles and the 300-meter hurdles. Another An-other sophomore, Jay Wor- ley, took third in both the 100-meter dash and the 200-meter dash. For the Miner girls, sophomore Erin Bolton led the way with a third in the high jump, fourth in the 100 ' meters, and third in the 200 meters. . Among the other top Miner performances, Dave Vida, a junior, took second in the high jump with a jump of 5 feet 5 inches. Kahn said the height is very close to the school record and it probably won't be long before Vida sets a new mark. The relay team of Worley, junior Erich Fouse, junior Matt Burnett and senior Pat Ott finished second in the 400-meter relay. The girls' team of freshman Abbey Peterson, and sophomores Pam Finegan, Laura Gardner and Tracy Stottem also earned a second-place result in the 1600-meter relay. Kahn hopes he can get his team down to Hillcrest to practice on that track a couple of times before the next meet on April 26 at Morgan. It will be a four-way meet, according to Kahn, but the other two schools have not been chosen as yet. Actually the second meet for the Miners was set for last Monday at Skyline, but was cancelled due to snow. The meet was rescheduled for Tuesday, but bus transportation trans-portation couldn't be worked out in time to get the Miners down to Skyline. The April 26 meet will be followed by the region meet . to be held at Utah State University in Logan on May 5. Then any qualifiers for the state meet will travel to Brigham Young University in Provo on May 12. |