Log in

A look back at the 2022 track season

Posted 6/23/22

The Fountain Hills High School track and field team ended its season in mid-May when sophomore Erin Hooley and junior Jentezen Behnke competed at the state meet. The Falcons had a productive first …

You must be a member to read this story.

Join our family of readers for as little as $5 per month and support local, unbiased journalism.


Already have an account? Log in to continue.

Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here

Otherwise, follow the link below to join.

To Our Valued Readers –

Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.

For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.

Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.

Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.

Sincerely,
Charlene Bisson, Publisher, Independent Newsmedia

Please log in to continue

Log in
I am anchor

A look back at the 2022 track season

Posted

The Fountain Hills High School track and field team ended its season in mid-May when sophomore Erin Hooley and junior Jentezen Behnke competed at the state meet. The Falcons had a productive first season under head coach Kevin Clancy, as they had seven other athletes provisionally qualify for state, set 26 new top 10 individual school records and, in total, the Falcons amassed 114 new personal records.

Clancy clarified that if a Falcon improved their record multiple times in one event over the course of the season, he counted it as one new personal record at the end of the season.

If you speak with Clancy for long enough, he’s bound to mention one complaint about how high school track and field is done in the state of Arizona. There are no regions, sections or leagues to break down the competition. This leaves divisions as the only filter, and there are only four divisions for every school in the entire state of Arizona to fall into.

In many other states, athletes qualify for a region or section championship, and then the standings from those championships are used to qualify for the state championship. In Arizona, since teams don’t qualify collectively, high school track athletes only have one pathway to the postseason. They have to have hit the state provisional mark for their event, and they must also be ranked in the top 24 in their division to compete at state.

“In a state where you don’t have regions or leagues or sections, you’re either [setting a PR] or you’re hitting the provisional mark, there’s a big gap in between,” Clancy said. “For them to hit that mark, it’s like the final benchmark before state, so I think they saw that and some of them got extremely close.”

One of the Falcons to hit the provisional mark but not advance to state was junior JP Cahill for the long jump. The provisional standard was 19’8”, and in his last three meets, Cahill jumped 19’5”, 19’10”, and then 20’3”, which is good for second all-time in Falcon school history. Unfortunately for the Falcons, Cahill landed wrong during that final jump and had to wear a brace on his leg for several weeks.

“You could just see how much everyone loved him, they were all around him,” Clancy said. “We had to finish out the meet because that’s what he would’ve wanted us to do. It was against Veritas Prep, and it was senior night…You could just tell in the subsequent relays, that they were running for JP.”

Clancy said it was a galvanizing moment for the team and seeing the Falcons inspired was a silver lining to the injury. Cahill is a hard worker, and he was one of the many athletes to make huge strides this year.

“A lot of it is about putting in the work, and then the results truly show the work,” Clancy said. “Because it’s the same 400m circle, it’s the same 12-lbs. shot put, it's the same height for the hurdle. There’re no variables, so if you put in the work, you literally get better, and your times show it.”

Several athletes came into the season with a specific event in mind to work on. According to Clancy, junior Zion Atwood was focused on hurdles all season long. His season best on the 300m hurdles was 44.27, just outside the provisional marker for state. However, Atwood now holds the third-best time for the event in school history.

Atwood also moved up to 10th all-time in school history for the 110m hurdles with a time of 19.91. Fellow junior Gunnar Wise also holds the record for seventh all-time in the 110m hurdles with a 19.47 record.

Some athletes, particularly the ones newer to the sport, tried multiple events at each meet. Some eventually found their events, like freshman Katie Hampton. According to Clancy, Hampton had tried several sprints and jumps, but then she worked with assistant coach Stephanie Lies and threw a javelin about 70 feet on her first try.

Hampton recorded a 72’11” PR in javelin, good for fifth all-time in school history. A former javelin state champion for Fountain Hills, Lies still holds the school record at 124’3”. Lies coached the Falcons’ field sports this season and she also helped junior Spencer Nelson reach third all-time in javelin with a 131’9” record, and sophomore Eliana Bartman make eighth all time in discus with 77’7”.

Junior Timothy Lamar also made fifth all time for javelin with 115’2”, and he made the top 10 in two other events as well. Lamar is 10th in the 200m with 24.20, and ninth in the 400m with 55.90. Senior Sebastian Jackson set the record for fourth all-time in the 100m with 11.59, and eighth all-time in the 200 with 24.09.

Junior Tyler Irvine-Violette is fifth all-time in the 800m with 2:07:20, and eighth all-time in the 3200m with 11:07.97. Fellow juniors Nicholas Ireton is fourth in the triple jump with 39’4.5”, and Behnke is third in the high jump with 5’10”. Hooley is now fourth in the 1600m with 5:39.75, and third all-time in the 3200m with 12:18.42.

It was a good first year for Clancy, but he has higher ambitions and would like to bring back a trophy to Fountain Hills. He has two main goals to continue developing his team, recruit more girls and condition in the winter.

The Falcons had seven sophomore girls and two other female athletes this year. Clancy’s goal is to have 12 girls next season and continue to grow from that base. Clancy will stay away from coaching during the soccer season next winter so that he can do preseason training for track. He says he will still be a fan of the soccer teams, but he’ll try to show his support from the bleachers, not the sidelines.

The Falcons are losing two seniors to graduation, Sebastian Jackson and Anthony Kasson, but they’ll keep nearly 30 other athletes. Between bringing back home meets after a four-year hiatus and so many new records, Clancy is excited for the future of track and field at Fountain Hills.