Grand County Track Team finishes excellent year with eight school records broken

This past weekend, the Grand County High School track and field team competed at the Utah High School Track and Field championships at Brigham Young University in Provo. The team had nearly 20 athletes qualify for the state meet, more than was on the team’s whole roster just last year. 

The meet started off with fireworks on Friday morning with GCHS junior Cadence Kasprick winning the 3A 3200m championship in a sprint to the finish, with her sister Ainsleigh Kasprick closing closely behind in 4th place to rack up big points for the team. 

Following that race, junior Aiden Gordon ran a stellar 110m hurdle prelim race, earning him a spot in the finals the following day. He qualified in the 300m hurdles as well. 

Junior Mia McKay ran an excellent race in the 300m hurdles, earning her a spot in the first state finals race of her career. Freshman Hannah Burgess achieved two huge personal records in the 100m and 200m dash and earned a spot in the finals. Grand County’s Medley team–consisting of Hannah Burgess, Hailey Dowd, Mia Mckay, and Cadence Kasprick—placed 3rd overall, earning them a podium spot. 

This was the first year that the championships had a Unified Division for athletes to compete in events sponsored by Utah Special Olympics. Cooper Taylor was the champion in the Unified 50m dash. Paul Noorlander placed 5th and Jade Mcpherson placed 4th in the Unified 50m dash. 

Jade Mcpherson placed 4th in the Unified shotput, Cooper Taylor placed 4th, and Paul Noorlander placed 8th. During the Unified events, a 4x100m relay with teams consisting of two Unified athletes and two partner athletes was held, and the team of Cooper Taylor, Paul Noorlander, Jace Reidhead, and Cooper Potts took 1st place. 

These events were a huge success and the energy at the meet was electric while they competed. The hope is to build the Unified team that we have at Grand County and get more athletes involved. 

On Saturday, Cadence Kasprick got the ball rolling, winning her second state title of the weekend in the 1600m. Ainsleigh Kasprick took a personal record, placing her 5th in the race. 

Aiden Gordon took 3rd place in 110m hurdles, running one of his fastest times of the year. Hannah Burgess took 7th place in a loaded 100m field earning her her first individual medal of the weekend.  

Aiden Gordon also took third place in a nail-biter race in the 300m hurdles and picked up his second medal of the weekend. Mia McKay took fourth place in the 300m hurdles, earning her first individual medal. Hannah Burgess placed 8th in the 200m Dash to earn herself another medal for the weekend. Cadence Kasprick placed 3rd in the 800m. The girls 4x100m team–consisting of Malina Paerschke O’Brien, Hannah Burgess, Kailee Meador, and Hailey Dowd–shattered the previous school record with a time of 51.25 seconds and placed 6th. 

Overall, the girls team placed 5th and the boys team placed 15. 

The track team had an excellent year and competed tough. The team had nearly 50 kids and hope to have that number grow in future years. In total, this year eight school records were broken.

The track team and coaches would like to thank all of the community members who supported us this season and Moab Sun News Community Photographer Jason Strother (JTS Media) for the awesome photos he took of the team this year. 

Records broken this year:

• Boys 300M Hurdles: New Aiden Gordon 39.08 Old Andy Bathemess 39.43 (2014)

• Girls 400M Dash: New Cadence Kasprick 58.89 Old Kylah Ricks 1:00.25 (2021)

• Girls 800M Dash: New Cadence Kasprick 2:18.73 Old Kylah Ricks 2:19.45 (2021)

• Girls 1600M: New Cadence Kasprick 4:58.47 Old Kylah Ricks 5:01.58 (2021)

• Girls 3200M: New Cadence Kasprick 10:37.86 Old Kylah Ricks 10:56.56 (2021

• Girls 4x100M Relay: New Malina Paerschke O’Brien, Hannah Burgess, Kailee Meador, and Hailey Dowd 51.25 Old Kemrey Wells, Whitney Keogh, Kelsey McKinnon, and Sylvia Bentley 51.79 (2006)

• Girls 4x400M Relay: New Ainsleigh Kasprick, Cora Baird, Mia Mckay, and Cadence Kasprick 4:08.37 Old Ivy Hazlett, Natalie Garrett, Oceanna Irish, and Sylvia Bentley 4:11.23 (2006)

• Girls 1600M Medley: New Hannah Burgess, Hailey Dowd, Mia Mckay, and Cadence Kasprick 4:14.77 Old Kylah Ricks, Morgan Lewis, Emree Olsen and Maggie Groene 4:21.51 (2021)

Author: Ali Harford

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