Platte Valley sends seven to sectionals

JON DYKSTRA/THE FORUM
Platte Valley assistant coach Sarah Langford talks to her sister Emalee Langford between triple jumps on Saturday in Grant City.

GRANT CITY, Mo. — The junior distance running core of Mylie Holtman, Allison Riley, Mya Wray and Emalee Langford have set the tone a lot for Platte Valley over the years and did that again on Saturday at districts.

The four juniors, who have all ran at the state level multiple times, opened the track portion of the meet with a sectional-qualifying third-place finish in the 4×800-meter relay.

“It is a lot of fun because obviously we’ve been together since our freshman year,” Wray said. “… I think we’ve made our order a little bit better and we keep improving our times.”

Langford, Wray and Riley continued that success by each advancing in individual events. Langford ran the relay between triple jumps, but was still able to take second in the event with a 9.84-meter jump. She narrowly missed another berth in the long jump with a personal-best, but took fifth.

“I’m really excited,” Langford said of the triple jump. “I’ve never made it to sectionals before, so I’m pretty proud of myself.”

Wray contributed the team’s lone district championship by running away from the competition in the 3200-meter run winning in a time of 12:21.85 during the warmest meet of the year.

“Today was definitely ‘survive’ — real emphasis on that because was our hottest meet of the year this year,” Wray said. “It has been hard, just not running in it because we haven’t even had that many practices in this heat. It is just survive and advance. You only have to get a top-4 so just hitting the cruise button on that 2-mile is what I did today.”

The two-time state champion in the event goes into sectionals as the Class 1 leader in the event.

“I’m not really looking for PR’s through districts and sectionals, but just saving it up for state I think is the goal,” Wray said.

Riley will be the team’s busiest athlete at sectionals — qualifying in the 1600-meter run, 3200-meter run and as the anchor in the 4×800-meter relay. Riley finished second in the 1600-meter run and third in the 3200-meter run.

On the boys side of things, it was the field events that shined.

Senior Justin Miller led the way by qualifying in the long jump and triple jump. Miller was second in the triple jump and third in the long jump.

Bruce Otto continued his break-out season in the javelin by taking second in the district with a 42.39-meter throw. Otto has thrown at least 40 meters in six of his last eight meets this season.

Senior Landon Wiederholt rounded out the qualifiers by taking third in the shot put to advance to sectionals in his first year back in track and field.

“It is about having consistency,” Wiederholt said. “I know that I can go to any meet and compete.

The sectional meet is Saturday in Mound City with the top-4 finishers in each event advancing to state the following weekend.

“Jump far,” Langford said is the goal for sectionals.

Wiederholt is also taking a simple approach.

“Be strong and be ready to chuck it far,” he said.