The Patrick County High School track team turned in some excellent performances at the Conference 32 Championships last week.

The top six individuals and top three relay teams in each event qualify for regional competition, and the Cougars are proud to be sending 10 kids on to the 3A West Championships this week in Palmyra.

“This whole season we have really been focused on effort and getting better every time we step on the track or get in the circle,” said Coach Danel Slaydon. “The kids executed beautifully today, and even in cases where kids didn’t crack the top six, they competed with everything they had and finished with empty tanks, which we are just incredibly proud of,” he added.

Lexy Carico claimed the title of conference champion in the discus, and followed that up with a fourth place finish in the shot put. She will be joined in the discus at Regionals by Reanna Carico and Molly Hernandez, who finished fifth and sixth, respectively.

On the boys’ side, Tyler Lumpkin threw extremely well to place third in the discus and was followed closely by Matt Amos in fourth.

On the track, Juan Cisneros ran two big personal records (PRs), finishing fourth in both the mile and two-mile, and automatically qualifying for states in the mile.

Armonte Carter had a very impressive PR in the 400, running a full second faster than she ever has before in that event to claim third place.

In the final event of the day, the boys 4×400 team (Tommy Pauley, Juan Cisneros, Jared Biedrycki and Zach Montgomery) ran an extremely gritty race to place third in a stacked race of gentlemen.

“Those boys raced purely on guts and emotion, and it paid off in a big way,” Slaydon said.

“We will travel to Palmyra next week to compete at Regionals and will be doing so with the same type of grit that we brought to Conference. It is definitely going to be a really fun meet for this group of athletes,” said Slaydon.

Other top performances were as follows: Brandon Rohrbach-9th (400); Richard Glenn-9th (discus); and Macie Rogers-8th (800).