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Cats take second at Lovington meet

LOVINGTON — Lovington High managed to get its Ross Black Relays track meet in before the weather turned on Friday night.

Clovis and Portales High’s squads, though, decided not to stick around for the end.

With the weather beginning to change late in the day, CHS and PHS squads decided to skip the evening’s final couple of events.

Clovis finished second in boys competition with 90 1/2 points, trailing Hobbs (118), while the Lady Wildcats shared fourth place with Artesia at 53 points apiece. Carlsbad (64) outlasted Ruidoso (61 1/2) for team honors.

Portales’ boys finished with 20 1/2 points while the PHS girls scored 18 in the 10-school competition.

Junior Burgin Foster extended his own CHS pole vault record, going 15 feet, 1 inch, while junior Justin Manilla went a personal-best 12-6 to share fifth place with Portales’ Jesus Castillo.

Foster won the Class 6A state championship last year at 14 feet, and is well-positioned to make another run at it this time.

“The big thing is he’s been 15 feet for the last three weeks,” CHS boys coach Darren Kelley said. “He still hasn’t maxed out. The nice thing is he’s going to be able to win it, unless something weird happens.”

Manilla, on the other hand, is also in position to possibly score in next month’s 6A state meet at Albuquerque, Kelley said.

“He just came out of nowhere,” he said of Manilla. “He’s kind of starting to figure it out. There’s a chance he could be in the top five or six at state.”

Rheal Kuchta and Micah Gray also took individual wins for the Wildcats, Kuctha taking javelin competition at 155-4 and Gray winning the 400 in 52.04 seconds. Portales’ Treyton Neece (153-11) and Clovis’ Skylar Wadas (151-3) were second and third, respectively, in javelin.

Kelley said Kuchta needs to get to 164 feet to qualify for state, unless he’s first or second in next weekend’s District 2-6A meet in Albuquerque.

“He had one throw that went out of bounds (on Friday) that would’ve qualified him,” Kelley said.

The Lady Cats were strong in the throws, with senior Brittany Reed (39-2) leading a CHS 1-4-5 finish in shot put and senior Monay Phillips (116-5 1/2) pacing a 1-2-5 showing in discus.

On the track, senior Jaci Sievers ran second in the 800 at 2:25.80, although she’s still about a second short of qualifying in the event. Clovis also won the 800 relay and finished second in the 400 relay, qualifying for state in both.

“Everybody did really well,” Lady Cats coach Dawn Coleman said. “We’ve got all our relays qualified now.”

They also got sophomore Kianna Chappell qualified in shot after she threw 35-4, joining Reed and Phillips.

“We still want to get Jaci qualified in the 800,” Coleman said of the district meet. “And hopefully, we can get some sprint events qualified.”

Senior Trenton Small posted the lone win for Portales, taking boys shot put at 51-9 1/2, while Treyton Neece finished second to Kuchta in javelin at 153-11.

The Rams also got senior Julian Tellez qualified in the boys 110 hurdles (16.36).

For the Lady Rams, junior Jessie Campbell notched second place in high jump at 5 feet, two inches off her personal best established last Tuesday in a meet at Hobbs.

PHS coach Glenn Johnson said his squads are looking forward to hosting District 4-4A competition on Friday at Greyhound Stadium.

“We’re very pleased with where we are right now,” Johnson said, looking ahead to the Class 4A state meet. “We’re very close (to qualifying) on a couple more events.”

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