Glenwood, Basalt add relay teams and indviduals

By Phil Sandoval

Post Independent Staff

The roster continues to grow for area athletes headed to this weekend’s state track championships.

After finishing in the top three in two additional events at the regional meet in Grand Junction, Glenwood Springs will have two more entries at the 4A boys state meet in Lakewood.

In his first jump in the regional triple jump competition, Demon sophomore Chris Benson nailed a 43-foot, 11-inch jump to advance to the big show. The mark surpassed his previous best of 41-4 by more than two feet.

Overall, Benson finished third in the event.

Benson is also a member of Glenwood’s state-qualifying 4×200 relay team. The foursome of Joe Schiavone, Benson, Dustin Breager and Matt Wilson blazed to a seasonal-best time of 1 minute, 32.73 seconds for third place and the final state-qualifying berth in the event.

In the Class 3A meet, Basalt had 13 state qualifiers.

Three Longhorn relay teams will see action at Friday’s 3A preliminaries in Pueblo.

The boys 4×400 relay squad of Frank Howard, Chris Kemp, Clayton Peetz and Damian McDaniel ran a second-place time of 3:39.57 at Saturday’s event finals.

Two girls relay teams – the 4×200 regional champ and the 4×800 regional runner-up – have also advanced to state.

Basalt’s individual event state qualifiers include Frank Howard in the boys 400, Emily Gustafson in the girls 200, Amy Lund in the girls 3200 and Haley Stumpas in the intermediate hurdles.Basalt’s individual event state qualifiers include Frank Howard in the boys 400, Emily Gustafson in the girls 200, Amy Lund in the girls 3200 and Haley Stumpas in the intermediate hurdles.