Lind-Ritzville hosts track and field meet

Apr. 18—RITZVILLE — The Lind-Ritzville Broncos hosted a home track and field meet with nine other regional teams Wednesday afternoon at Lind-Ritzville High School. The Broncos placed second in boys varsity and seventh in girls varsity

The Broncos came in behind Northwest Christian Schools Colbert Campus, which placed first in both boys and girls varsity. Overall, Lind-Ritzville Head Coach Caitlin Teske said the meet went very well, particularly with personal records.

"For Ritzville itself, we had a phenomenal PR day," Teske said. "The weather was great. Almost all of our athletes PR'd in all their events they took place in."

Teske highlighted some performances from the meet.

"Our boys 100-meter runners both PR'd, Zach Klein and Brock Kinch PR'd, Brody Boness PR'd. All three of them made top 10 in the whole meet for 100-meters," she said. "We had a loaded heat of the 400-meter dash where they were kind of battling it out as teammates and competing against each other ... I had five in the top 10 for the boys 400-meter dash and in top four, I had three of the four of my runners."

In boys varsity, senior Brock Kinch placed first in the 200-meter run and second in the 100-meter run, alongside junior Zach Klein, who placed second in the 100-meter run and first in the 400-meter run. The Broncos' 4x100-meter relay team and 4x400-meter teams both took first place. On the field side of the meet, junior Brody Boness took first place in Shot Put.

"I'd say our whole team needs to be highlighted, as we've all been cutting times and making great gains and PRs," Teske said. "Even on the girl's side, with our relay teams, we've had some injuries, we've got a girl out with a hamstring injury and sore legs, and so we kind of didn't run our normal legs at the races and they still performed very well. So overall as a team ... they've been working hard and grinding very well."

For the girls varsity, the Broncos' 4x100-meter relay team took second place and the 4x200-meter team took third place. For field events, Sophomore Zoe Galbreath tied for first place with two Northwest Christian athletes in Pole Vault and Senior Cindy Julien placed third in Shot Put.

"Not only our track team had a great day, but you could look at the scores and the PRs, and all the other schools had a lot of PRs too," Teske said. "So that was good to see. Track is such a community sport where all the teams kind of work together and cheer each other on, so it's cool when not only your team does well but other teams do well."

Teske outlined her training emphasis going forward.

"There's a lot of little things that we start perfecting now," she said. "We're not necessarily doing the extreme, hardcore, grinding workouts like you do in the preseason, it's more perfecting the little things that can go wrong and adjusting those and being comfortable in those different positions and making things work."

Lind-Ritzville players have a good chance of moving on to state competitions, Teske said.

"We've got a few of our relay teams, both boys and girls, that are sitting in the top five," she said. "We've got a lot of individuals who are sitting in the top 10 for individual events, and they take the top three when we go into the state qualifier in May. So the possibilities are there and it's not out of reach ... But we're kind of taking it one track meet at a time, and it is looking very, very good for some of our athletes."

Teske said that the coaches and the athletes have a good working relationship.

"This spring break, when we had optional practices, we had most of our athletes turn out for the optional practices, which you don't always get," she said. "On different occasions when we've had optional practices, you'll see the kids out there even when they don't have to or they aren't required ... Honestly, I'm going to go out and say that this year alone is probably one of the hardest working group of kids that I've had."

Gabriel Davis may be reached at gdavis@columbiabasinherald.com.