Girls power to 3rd-place finish

Two golds, two silvers, a bronze, as well as two other podium places, made for a strong third-place team finish for Holyoke girls track in the 2A Colorado State Track & Field Championships last week.

Veteran throwers came through for the top two places in the girls discus (Lauren Herman and Correy Koellner) and top three in girls shot put (Koellner, Herman and Emali Torres) to power the Lady Dragons to their third-place finish at Jeffco Stadium in Lakewood on June 24-26.

Juniors Koellner and Herman and senior Torres had previous state meet experience. They used that to their advantage, and they did not disappoint.

Freshman Tayla Martin had a phenomenal first-year showing to pick up a couple more points with her eighth-place finish in the 400. And Koellner found a new event in the long jump, in which she placed ninth.

Relay team members ran for the first time at state for some good experience to hopefully bring back next season.

Not many teams are led by their throwing core, said coach Corey Koberstein as he praised the Lady Dragon throwers.

He looks forward to the experience that will return next season, with only one senior graduating off the team. He wishes the best to Torres who plans to continue her track and field career at Nebraska Wesleyan in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Herman sets new discus record

In her second throw of preliminaries, Herman marked 126’1” to break Koellner’s previous school discus record of 122’4” which she set during the 2019 season.

The throw was a clear gold medal effort, with only Koellner coming within 1’2”. In her last throw in the finals, Koellner heaved a 124’11” throw for a new personal best which would have broken the school record if Herman hadn’t already done that only minutes earlier.

Koellner placed second, a full 17’2” ahead of the third-place finisher. Torres also competed in the discus for Holyoke.

Dragons provide exciting finish to place 1-2-3 in girls shot put

Holyoke’s shot put trio has pushed each other hard all season, and nothing changed at the state meet, where they finished in the top three spots.

The competition actually started two years ago. At the 2019 state meet, Torres, then a sophomore, won the gold while Koellner finished fourth and Herman fifth.

Going into state competition this year, Koellner was ranked first, Herman third and Torres fourth.

Because Koellner was competing in both shot put and long jump at the same time, she was moved to the first flight in the shot put arena. She led from the beginning, heading into finals in first place.

All three of her finals throws were better than her preliminary efforts, with the second throw in finals being her best at 38’8.25”.

In the meantime, Torres entered the finals in third and Herman in fourth place.

Taking it down to the wire, Herman stepped in the ring for her final throw to mark 36’8”, bumping her up to second place and dropping Torres to fourth.

Not to be outdone, Torres threw her best effort of the day at 36’6.5” to move into third for the clean sweep by the Lady Dragons.

Martin, Koellner round out Holyoke team points

Martin clocked a 1:04.19 in the finals of the 400-meter race to finish eighth in her first-time state appearance as a freshman.

Koellner, who had bounced back and forth between long jump and shot put competition Saturday afternoon, finished ninth in the long jump with a 15’6” jump, which she marked in her last jump in prelims.

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