1A Girls Track and Field: Merino Captures Second-Straight State Championship

LAKEWOOD – The Merino girls track and field team is still the champion.

On Saturday at Jefferson County Stadium, the Rams scored 106 team points to claim the Class 1A team title and go back to back, in 2023 and 2024.

“It’s a great group of ladies, great parents, great community,” Merino coach Jason Webb said. “It all starts there. My job is really just to keep it going and I feel really humbled just to be the coach of this particular group of girls. We just peaked at the right time. It’s been a tough weather year for us, and for all of track. Good things happen when the weather cooperates too.”

Merino’s Brooklyn Sutter won the 1A girls 1,600-meter run with a time of 5 minutes, 27.71 seconds. Merino (Analise Bara, Kaya Piel, Hailey Foos and Veronica Baray) also won the 1,600-meter relay with a time of 4:21.82.

Sanford finished second in the team competition with 72 team points and McClave was third with 59 points.

There were a number of other exceptional individual performances on Saturday as well.

In the 1A girls 100-meter dash, Cheyenne Wells sophomore Roxy Unruh placed first with a time of 12.21 seconds, breaking her own 1A state meet record of 12.38.

“It’s really exciting because I set the record last year and I’m just trying to do better every year, hopefully breaking 11 next year,” said Unruh, who entered the event understandably confident she could top her time from last year. “You have to have a little confidence when running, otherwise it’s not going to work.”

Later in the day, Unruh added two more 1A meet records to her resume when she ran a 57.52 in the 1A girls 400 and 25.64 in the 200.

In the 1A girls shot put, Elbert’s Zadie Mackey set a 1A meet record with a throw of 44 feet, 11.5 inches.

“It was something that I’ve been chasing and it was the goal all year,” Mackey said. “It meant the world. Coming off of not having the greatest day on Thursday throwing disc, which is what people would say is my main event, doing this today and coming out with that fire and that fight, I was super grateful.”

Fleming’s Brooklyn Schaefer won the 1A girls long jump with a mark of 15-9.75.

In the 1A girls 100 hurdles, Sanford senior Holly McDaniel’s time of 20 seconds flat won the gold. She also took home gold with a time of 47.24 seconds in the 300 hurdles.

McClave – Avery Hemphill, Addison Vallejos, Kristen Marks and Ashlynn Steinbrunn – won the 400-meter relay in 52.14 seconds.