Valley Sports ReportENDICOTT — Waverly senior Troy Beeman sat in second place most of the day, but unleashed the best throw of his career in hist penultimate throw to win a Class B title and punch his ticket to States here Thursday afternoon at the Section IV Track & Field State Qualifier, while a pair of Lady Wolverine relay narrowly missed a trip to States.
“I think over the past few days, I'm nothing but proud of them," said Waverly coach Dave Hogan. "I mean, most of our athletes here, in all their respective events, hit new personal-bests, and as a coach, this is, of course, that time of year where you want to see that and they did it.
"I'm just super-proud of all of them," he added.
Beeman won the discus with a personal-best throw of 146-feet, 6-inches, and Owego senior Davis was second at 139-feet, 4-inches.
“I started off struggling a little bit and then I finished the best I could've done," said Beeman. "So, I felt pretty good at the end.”
“Actually, (Davis) was in the lead for quite a bit of the day until the second to last throw of mine, and I got to get one of those far ones out there, and I took over and that was that," Beeman noted.
Beeman is looking forward to the state meet.
“(It’s my) first time going. I'm very excited. I'm just hoping to get myself a nice PR, and, hopefully, I can get a place,” said Beeman.
"We're really happy for him and our throws coach, Matt Rote," said Hogan. "They've done tremendous work together all season."
Senior Kaitlyn Sutton, sophomores Kaylin Twedt and Gianna Soprano, and 8th-grader Kezlynn DeKay teamed to finish second in the 400-meter relay in a time of 50.66 seconds — just 0.25 seconds off the winning pace of the M-E foursome.
Sutton, Twedt and DeKay were joined by senior Haley Larrabee in a second-place performance in the 1,600-meter relay, clocking in with a time of 4:09.14 — just 0.31 seconds behind the winning time of the Vestal foursome.
"The girls 4-by-1 gave Maine-Endwell an amazing race and came up just 0.25 seconds short of a trip to the state meet," said Hogan.
"Unfortunately, the girls 4-by-4 gave Vestal their best race of the season and came up just 0.31 seconds short.
"All the credit in the world to the girls in these two relays for battling all season, qualifying to make it here, and giving it their all," added Hogan. "Our staff is incredibly proud of them."
Juniors Chase Hine and Jayden Washington teamed with freshman James Cole and sophomore Hayden Montanye teamed to finished second in the 3,200-meter relay in a time of 8:39.02.
Stotler finished third in the pole vault with a height of 12-feet, and sophomore Jesse Lantz was fourth at 11-feet, 6-inches.
The Wolverines will have four competitors at States next week after sophomores Kaylin Twedt and Gianna Soprano, and 8th-grader Kezlynn DeKay qualified on Wednesday.
“All of them, whether it's Troy in disc or any of the three girls that qualified in their three events, everyone has to have their best day to get a medal," said Hogan.
"They’ve got to show up and do something new and something strong, because at the state meet everyone's got their hands full and none of these kids have been there yet," noted Hogan.
"It’s going to be a new experience," he added. "I just hope
the best for them and if they show up and do their best, we're OK.”
The New York State Championships are set for June 13-14 at Webster-Schroeder High School.
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IN PHOTO 1: Waverly's Troy Beeman. IN TOP PHOTO: Waverly's Kaylin Twedt. ... PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
