JEFFERSON CITY – Relying heavily on the senior tandem of Brooke Boehm and Mackenzie Moretina writing their final chapters of Park Hill athletics, the Lady Trojans took 17th place at the Class 5 State Track and Field Meet at Jefferson City High School on May 25.
Park Hill senior Mackenzie Moretina finished in third place in the 100-meter hurdles at the Class 5 State Track Meet at Jefferson City High School on May 25.
Park Hill ended with 12 points with Boehm and Moretina being responsible for those points. Boehm has made it to state each of the last three years in field events and was finally able to walk away with some hardware in the high jump.
“I haven’t done high jump since my sophomore year and I was worried since I had a bad knee at sectionals,” Brooke Boehm said. “I was praying that I was going to make it to the podium as high jumper so it’s really exciting that it happened.”
Boehm took 10th place in long jump and high jump as a sophomore before earning fourth place in the long jump last year. This time, she finished in seventh place in the high jump after clearing a season-best height of 5’3.
Boehm only needed one try to jump 4’9 and 4’11 and then needed two tries to clear 5’3 and come short of 5’3.75. This isn’t her final time being a track and field athlete as she is moving on to continue her academic and athletic career at Western Illinois University.
“I wanted to do better, and I wanted to make the podium this year. I’m so happy and I can’t wait for the next four years at college,” Boehm said.
Ahead of her last track meet, Moretina had her own collection of all-state medals – both in relays and individual events. After barely scraping a spot into finals of the 100-meter hurdles as a junior to become all-state caliber, Moretina had a more dominant performance this year.
“I’m actually just in awe of God’s glory,” Mackenzie Moretina said. “It’s crazy because I worked so hard. I had a rough season my sophomore year and last year I tied for the eighth place spot, then this year I feel like God gave me the gift. There’s no other explanation.”
Moretina not only ran .10 seconds faster in 2024 preliminaries than she did in 2023 finals, but also claimed fourth place in that race. In her final individual race as a Lady Trojan, she kept it going with a tight finish to take third place in 14.5 seconds – being the first of three finishers in one-tenth of a second.
“I thought for a second I got fourth (place) and then I looked at the board and saw I got third (place). I knew it was a PR because I had never got out that fast,” Moretina said.
Moretina was also the anchor on the all-state 4x200, behind Caroline Schaag, Desi Holbrook and Jae Bell. Despite having two freshmen with no state exposure – Schaag and Bell – Park Hill ran a season-best time of 1:42.63 in preliminaries led by the leadership of Moretina who was on the state-caliber 4x100 each of the last three years.
“It’s super different; I had to leave my 4x100 team because two of them were seniors and then they brought up some younger girls this year that have a lot of potential. They’re super talented and I’ve never actually ran a 4x200 so going this far to finals means so much,” Moretina said.
Park Hill ran even faster in the final, crossing the finish line in 1:42.36 and was the fifth relay team to do so. It was another close finish with third through seventh places ending between 1:42 and 1:43.
Park Hill senior long-distance star Natalie Gerdes entered her final high school race with some momentum after being the sectional champion in the 2-mile a week prior. Gerdes started off behind in the first lap and made her way up to seventh place entering the fourth lap.
Over the next mile, Gerdes fell back to 14th place before picking it up in her final lap with a split of 1:21.36 and passing three runners. She ended in 11th place with a time of 11:33.77.