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Thunder Bay’s good day

The Thunder Bay Junior High School track and field team was host to the Big North Conference middle school meet on Tuesday after a six-year wait.

Along with Thunder Bay, other BNC schools that competed were Traverse City West, Traverse City East, Petoskey, Gaylord and Cadillac.

Traverse City West took top honors in the girls races, finishing with 153.75 points, ahead of Traverse City East (86.75), Cadillac (81.75), Gaylord (80) Petoskey (76) and Thunder Bay (44.75).

East won the boys races with 172 points, ahead of West (114), Thunder Bay (102), Gaylord (63), Cadillac (39) and Petoskey (33).

Thunder Bay gave it all it had in its final meet of the year and set a few school records in what turned out to be a great day to participate in this longstanding conference tradition.

“It is a big task to host this event, if we didn’t have the volunteers it wouldn’t be possible, but we have a ton of help and it went really smooth. The kids were really excited for this meet and all of our kids worked hard. I was happy with what I saw and it was a good day,” Thunder Bay Junior High coach Bob LeFevre said.

Two of the school records that were broken throughout the course of the day included the 1,600 relay team of Jadon Duncan, Lucas Manning, Drew Seabase and Bradley Thompson who finished with a time of 3:53.86, just edging the previous school record of 3:54.8.

Duncan (57.81), Seabase (59.23) and Manning (59.95) also finished 2-3-4 in the 400 dash.

Gabe Bullis also set a school record in the pole vault at 10-9, surpassing the old mark of 10-6 as Bullis earned a first place finish in the event.

Thunder Bay had a few other first place finishers as Anna Young placed first in the 100 dash with a time of 13.82 and in the 200 dash at 29.21. Karli Myers placed first in the pole vault at 7-3.

Seabase placed first in the 1,600 run with a time of 4:58.06 and Riley Arlt placed first in long jump with a distance of 17-4.

Arlt also took second in the high jump (5-4). Duncan was third in the long jump (16-5) and Matt Fessler was third in the 100 dash (12.86).

“We had a few kids close to school records that worked hard to break them today and others that came very close. I really thought it was a good overall day for us as a whole,” LeFevre said.

The day meant a lot not only because it is a yearly competition between rival schools, but also for several Alpena track and field athletes to display themselves for the next year as some of the eighth graders decide to continue competing and the high school level or the seventh graders to find out what they need to improve on to better themselves for their final year at Thunder Bay.

“Some of our eighth graders are really looking forward to the next level and I thought did the best they could today, along with some of our seventh graders who are looking really strong and that gives us high hopes for next year,” LeFevre said.

Jonny Zawacki can be reached via email at jzawacki@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5690.

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