LAKEWOOD - Bradie Menegatti found the key to winning a state championship in the high jump.
That is skip the entire season and come back at the end.
The Pueblo West senior missed the vast majority of the regular season due to injury, used the last meet of the regular season to qualify for the Class 5A state meet and then won the state championship. Menegatti didn’t quite match her season best height of 5 feet, 7 inches, but 5-6 was good enough to earn gold.
“I’m a little bit in shock, but I couldn’t be any more happy,” Menegatti said. “I’ve only jumped one time this year because I’ve been injured. …To come out here and win it on a half approach is insane. It’s awesome.”
Competing for a Pueblo West team that made the move up to 5A this season, Menegatti missed six weeks with an injury to her plant leg, returned to jump 5-7 at the last meet to get into state and then won the title by an inch over runner-up Maggie Hoyer of Fossil Ridge, while there was a five-way tie for third place at 5-3 between Rampart’s Andrea Johnson, Erie’s Addison Greenlee, Horizon’s Evelyn McClellan and Denver South’s Asha Daniels and Ponderosa’s MacKenzie Rankin.
“The key is just don’t jump at all until the last two weeks,” Menegatti said with a laugh. “It hurt today, but I was more worried about winning instead of the pain, so I just tried to block everything out.”
Menegetti — who has the long jump ahead Friday — is headed to Texas A&M to compete in the heptathlon.
Erie sits in second place after the opening day of competition with a total of 18 points (four behind leader Fossil Ridge), which included a state championship in the shot put from junior Natalie Fetters. Combined with the seventh place result of junior Tegan Cervany, it was a 15-point haul for the Tigers in the event.
On the first throw of her preliminary flight, Fetters launched a throw of 38 2 1/4, which ended up as the throw that landed her the state crown over Riverdale Ridge senior Addison Bartlett. Bartlett had been the top seed coming into the event with a season-best throw of 40-8 1/2, but her top state effort was 38-1 1/2. Vista Ridge’s Meron Hoffman ended up third at 37-6 3/4.
“I’m still shocked,” said Fetters, whose season best was 39 feet set on May 10 at Teddy’s Last Chance Meet. “I just wanted to PR and do the best I could, I wasn’t focused on winning as much. It helped me block out my surroundings and process it better. I just wanted to see if I could improve and I’m happy with what I did.”
The 5A girls triple jump title went to Cherokee Trail senior Kaeli Powe for a second straight season, despite the fact she scored only two of a possible six attempts between prelims and finals.
The University of Central Florida signee ran the prelims of the 100 meter hurdles to open the day, scratched out of the 200 meters so she can run a relay later in the meet for the Cougars and made only one recorded jump in the prelims, passing on the last two after she tweaked her foot.
It was the third attempt in the finals that won the title, as she landed a jump of 41-4 1/2 that easily surpassed the top efforts of Columbine’s Kailani Forbes (38-9 1/2) and Eaglecrest’s Zenobia Witt (38-1 1/2).
“I just want to let it all go on the last one,” said Powe, whose wind-aided effort of 42-1 3/4 at the Broomfield Shootout was tops in the state this season.”It feels good to come back and do it again, for sure.”
The only track championship awarded on the opening day of the meet came in the 4x800 meter relay, in which Cherry Creek — seeded second coming into the meet behind Mountain Vista — won the title by more than three seconds over the Golden Eagles.
The team of Caroline Laughlin, Mattie Sheehan, Emily Cohen and Kinley Wolfe finished in 9:10.27, which was more than 10 seconds faster than it ran at the Centennial League Championships a week earlier.
“It feels amazing, I won my freshman year with a different team, so it feels so great to do it with these girls this year,” said Wolfe, who ran the anchor leg. “We knew it was possible, but not guaranteed because there are so many good teams in this field. We’re all such good friends and we’ve been working and building off each other all year. It feels so good to get this win together.”
Fossil Ridge didn’t have any first day champions, but accrued 22 points via a third-place finish in the 4x800 meter relay, plus Maggie Hoyer’s second-place finish in the high jump and seventh in the triple jump.