DECATUR — The Decatur Junior High Boys' Track team won the conference championship on April 20 and hammered the competition with a lead of nearly 90 points.
The Decatur team competed with nine other teams in the conference at the meet in Eureka Springs and scored more than 200 points, according to coach Stan Ellis. One of the team members, Trey Kell, was also named the conference’s most valuable player at the event, with an individual score of 55 points. Kell took first place in five events, Ellis said.
The girls' junior high team also did extremely well in the competition and won a close second place in the championship.
“It was a pretty tight race. The girls were only about 10 points out of the lead … It could have gone either way,” said Ellis.
A few of the other high scorers on the boys' team were Victor Urquidi, who won first place in three events, and his twin brother Mario Urquidi, who won first place in two events.
Lacy Barrett, Sarah Harris and Brittany Frost won first place ribbons for the girls' team.
Combined, the girls' and boys' teams won first place in 13 events, second place in three events and placed in a total of 33 events.
“I couldn’t have been more proud of them,” said Ellis, observing that both teams had worked extremely hard and were very diligent about coming to practice.
“Every one of them earned points for the team (at the conference championship),” he said.
The senior high track conference championship, originally scheduled for April 21, was postponed because of storms.
Sports, Pages 9 on 04/27/2011