Seven records fell at the 2014 Good Spirit School Division (GSSD) track meet this past Wednesday, May 14 at Century Field in Yorkton.
Yorkdale's Sarah Novakowski felled two separate records, laying claim to the Pee Wee girls 800m race with a sparkling time of 2:45. She then decided to lay claim to the 1500m record by running that race in an impressive 5:58.
Katya Andersen also claimed two new GSSD track and field records. The talented athlete from Saltcoats first broke the record in the Pee Wee girls 200m race with a time just under 30 seconds at 29.28. Andersen, not done with snapping records then set the new Pee Wee girls triple jump record with a mark of 8.83m.
Bryn Nystrom, also from Yorkdale, broke the Pee Wee girls high jump record by jumping 1.40 metres, while the Bantam girls high jump record also fell. Sarah Sutter of Springside broke that record with a jump of 1.46 metres.
Josh Haczkewicz was the lone boy to break a record on Wednesday. The student of M.C. Knoll School ran the 3000m in a record breaking time of 12:20.
But while only five different athletes broke records, all 474 students who participated in at least one of the 11 events (100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, and 3000m, high jump, triple jump, long jump, discus, and shot put) at the mandatory track meet had a great time. That great time was increased with the surprising cooperation of Mother Nature. ""The weather was amazing," offered Mark Schendel, teacher at M.C. Knoll and co-meet organizer. "But the level of sportsmanship and the overall efforts of all the athletes was even more amazing!"
Schendel then went on to explain that while this mandatory track meet is intended to get kids up and active, it also has a secondary purpose. "This is a qualifying meet for the District Meet on May 27th and 28th at the end of the month," mentioned Schendel, continuing, "There are two teams, Yorkton Urban MIddle Years (YUM) and Yorkton Rural Middle Years (YRM). YUM is M. C. Knoll, Dr. Brass, and Columbia top finishers, YRM are the rural schools and Yorkdale. We can have as many as 50 athletes per team attend, but we can only place two in each category."
