West Platte senior Ahlanna Rutherford hands the baton to sophomore Sam Baker in the 4x100-meter relay in the Class 2 State Track and Field Meet.
The West Platte girls’ track and field team earned a medal in all three relays it took to the Class 2 State Meet at Jefferson City High school on May 19 and 20.
With the 4x800-meter relay being the first event of the weekend, West Platte started off with a fifth-place finish in the event. Blair McHenry, Maddison McMillan, Julia Pattison and Avery Holmes made up the team and crossed the finish line in 10:17.6.
Pattison had the fastest split out of the four, running the two laps in 2:31.61. McHenry finished in 2:38.65, McMillan ran in 2:32.32 and Holmes had a 2:35.03 split.
Holmes improved her time when she took tenth place in the open 800-meter run. The junior crossed the finish line in 2:28.5, which was 2.46 seconds shy of a state medal.
Hailey Peters, Sophie Grier, Ahlanna Rutherford and Sam Baker qualified in the 4x100-meter relay with a preliminary time of 50.76 seconds for fifth place. They fell back to sixth place in 51.03 seconds in the finals.
The Lady Blue Jays 4x400-meter relay team of McHenry, Holmes, McMillan and Baker crossed the finish line in 4:13.07 to earn fourth place. That was more than six seconds faster than the preliminaries when the Lady Blue Jays took fifth place in 4:19.62.
West Platte had two other individuals who competed but fell short of a state medal. Baker went into the 400-meter dash tied for the seventh best time in the state, but she came out of her blocks too fast and was disqualified in the preliminaries.
Rutherford made it to state in the high jump for the only field event the Lady Blue Jays made it to Jefferson City in. She ended her West Platte career with a 4-09.5-foot in 13th place.