The Owensboro Catholic girls’ track and field team will be gunning for their fourth consecutive regional championship Saturday, and the boys’ team will also look to qualify several athletes for the state meet. The teams will compete in the Class A Region 2 championships Saturday at Green County High School in Greensburg, Ky.
Aces head coach Jim Ivey said going into regionals, he felt like the girls’ team has a very strong chance of extending their streak of titles.
“The girls are strong across the board,” he said. “I’ve looked at the pre-rankings a little bit, but I don’t put much thought into those. We have to go put in the work that day. We look really strong in the region.”
While Ivey is staying positive, he said it’s been a tough season overall.
“Training-wise with all the breaks and where they fell — spring break, Easter and prom, we only got one full week of training in since spring break and only one Saturday meet,” he said. “We have athletes going other directions, with soccer and spring football, and the main thing now is keeping everyone healthy. We’re still doing upscale workouts, but not overdoing it.”
Boy’s head coach Scott Lowe said has plenty of confidence in the distance events, and he thinks several runners will qualify for state.
“We will probably win region in the mile and the two-mile,” Lowe said. “We have several individuals who should have strong races at regionals.”
Senior Austin Stallings holds the school record 1600-meter and the 3200-meter races and will be a leader for the team on Saturday. Junior John Cason set the one mile record for Catholic last week at the Kentucky Dream Mile race.
The top two competitors in each event at the region meet will automatically qualify for the state meet in Lexington. The next 10 best times/heights/marks from the state-at-large also qualify for the state meet.
