Louisburg girls shine at home meet

By Andy Brown
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Updated: April 26, 2016

Andy Brown / Louisburg Sports Zone

Louisburg sprinter Jordon Leach races down the track in the 100-meter dash Thursday during Louisburg Invitational. Leach finished second overall and the Lady Cats finished runner-up in the team standings.

For the second week in a row, the Louisburg High School girls track and field team found itself toward the top of the team standings and it picked a good time to do it.

The Lady Cats put on a good show in front of their home fans Thursday during the Louisburg Invitational. Louisburg finished second overall with 139.5 points and won three events during the 8-team meet at Wildcat Stadium.

Blue Valley Southwest won the team crown with 168.5 points and Spring Hill was third with 96 points.

“I was very proud of the girls this past week,” Louisburg coach Greg Darrington said. “It felt really nice to see a bunch of different girls step up.”

One of those girls was sophomore Isabelle Holtzen who earned points for the team in four events. The big event for Holtzen was the pole vault as she cleared 9 feet to win gold and captured her second consecutive title.

Holtzen, along with Liz Hildreth, Shaylor Whitham and Lauren Becker, helped the 4×800-meter relay to a runner-up finish in 11 minutes and 3 seconds. Holtzen later finished fourth in the 800-meter run in 2:45.

Louisburg’s Liz Hildreth leads a pack of runners in the 800-meter run Thursday at the Louisburg Invitational.

“Isabelle is another strength of our team and keeps scoring points and improving each week,” Darrington said. “I know she does a lot with the pole vault and 4×800 along with the open 800. I know at some point his season she will need to just focus on a couple of events.”

Another improvement for the Lady Cats has been Klara Riester in both hurdle events. Riester won the 100-meter hurdles for the first time all season in 17.96 seconds and later took third in the 300 hurdles 52.25 seconds.

Lilly Mick also scored points in the 300 hurdles to finish fourth (54.55) and McKinley Mathews was fifth in the 100 hurdles (21.61)

“Klara is really doing a great job,” Darrington said. “She keeps getting better each week and she is a very competitive person who just goes out and does her best. Klara is working harder at practice which is really helping her at the meets.”

The Lady Cats also fared well in the sprints as the 4×100 relay team of Kaitlyn Gaza, Hanna Becker, Megan Lemke and Mikayla Quinn won in 54.36 seconds.

Jordon Leach also got some big points for Louisburg as she took second in the 100-meter dash in 13.54 and third in the 200 dash in 28.7. Gaza also ran a strong 200 dash as she took second in 28.6 seconds and Quinn was fourth in the 400 dash in 1:07.

Louisburg’s 4×400 relay of Gaza, Lemke, Reilly Alexander and Quinn also ran well to take second in 4:36.

“I really feel that our relay teams are beginning to come together,” Darrington said. “I believe the 4×400 is one of the strengths of our track team. The 4×800 keeps improving with the girls getting better in each leg of the race.”

In the distance races, Hildreth finished high again in the 800 run. The Louisburg junior was third overall in 2:37 and Alex Miller was sixth in 2:48.

Madelynn Yalowitz (14:02) and Whitham (14:05) ran fifth and sixth, respectively, in the 3,200-meter run.

Junior Ellie Katzer launches the discus Thursday during the Lady Cats’ home meet. Katzer was second overall.

The Lady Cats also scored several points in the field events and Chloe Renner helped out in that regard as she came in second in the high jump after she cleared 4-10. She also finished third in the high jump with a mark of 14-6.5 and fifth in the triple jump with leap of 29-7.

Junior Ellie Katzer finished runner up in the discus with a toss of 99-0, while sophomore Sophie McMullen came in fourth with a toss of 95-11. McMullen also took sixth the javelin with a throw of 91-8.

Mathews was third in the pole vault (8-0), Kaitlyn Urban was fourth in the triple jump (29-11), Makenna Allen took fifth in the high jump (4-6) and Lexie Reece came in sixth in the discus (92-3) to round out the Lady Cat point scorers.

Louisburg will split off into two meets this week as some will travel to the Prairie View Invitational on Thursday, while others will go to the Gardner Relays on Friday.