Coming off of its win at Battle of the Hills, the girls track and field team kept up its momentum to beat both Byron Center and Lowell. They beat the Bulldogs 76-61 and beat the Red Arrows 69-68, just outsourcing them. The boys also had a great meet, as they beat Lowell 69-62 but fell to Byron Center by a score of 70-63.

“I think the team definitely had its best performance of the season so far,” said senior Kyle James-Heer. “We had lots of personal records set, and we were competitive to win in all events.”

Kyle and his sister, freshman Clara James-Heer, proved to be quite the duo in Thursday’s meet. They both won the 1600-meter event, Clara with 5:17.69 and Kyle with an outdoor PR at 4:41.07.

“The race was tough because of some harsh winds, but I knew the team needed the points, so I just gave it my all and got the win which felt great.” Coming in second and third place by less than four seconds were two runners from Lowell, so by out touching them, Kyle helped add to the team’s score, which ultimately beat Lowell by that one point.

Some other accomplishments on the boys side came from junior Sam Yeager. Not only did he win the 400-meter dash yet again, but he also helped lead the 4×400 and 4×800 relays to victory. The relay team of junior Evan Boucher, senior Jonah Cumings, senior Dallas Hopson, and Sam himself ran for a time of 3:41.94 to win the event. The 4×800 relay team of  Sam Yeager, Kyle James-Heer, Jonah Cumings, and sophomore Ethan Krampe went 8:45.97, beating their closest opponent by three seconds.

The Rangers also did well in the pole vault event. Junior Matthew Burns won the event at 12 feet, while senior Sam Musgraves came close behind with a PR of 10’ 6”.

Not only did the girls team win all of the relays, but they won every track event besides the 400m dash. Taking home the wins from the 100m and 200m dash was sophomore Lauryn Gaskin with best times in both, going 13.70 and 28.15. Freshman Zenash Cumings came in a close second to Lauryn in the 200m, going 28.67.

Freshman Peyton Ludwig went on to win the 800-meter event, going 2:31.41. Whitney Currie then PR’d in the 3200 meters, going a speedy time of 11:21.20.

“The season has been going good so far. It’s still early, so we are still trying to figure out what people should be in what events, but every meet, we learn something new, and we should see big improvements in the upcoming meets,” said Kyle.

Up next, the Rangers will compete in the Cougar Invite on Friday, April 23, against multiple opponents.