Republic brings home record eight state track medals from Jefferson City
Seven Republic athletes combined to bring home eight medals from the state track meet: Gracie Troester, 1600m run; Jenna Belcher, long jump; 4x800m relay left to right – Reese Finley, Gracie Woods, Kristin Probst, and Gracie Troester; long jump, Zion Allen; high jump, Zion Allen; Alaina Norman, shot put; Gracie Troester, 3200m run;
Pictured above, 4x400m relay left to right - Reese Finley, Gracie Woods, Alaina Norman, and Kristin Probst. (Photos submitted)
4x800 - Reese Finley, Gracie Woods, Kristin Probst, Gracie Troester.
Zion Allen - High jump and long jump
Jenna Belcher - Long jump
Alaina Norman - Shot put
Gracie Troester - 3200m run and 1600m run
Republic athletes won eight medals at the Class 5 State Track & Field Championships in Jefferson City on Friday and Saturday. Seven Republic athletes earned all-state honors in those eight events. The previous best performance at the state meet for Republic was last year, with six medals won. The Lady Tigers finished ninth as a team.
Gracie Troester made history by winning three medals, the first Republic athlete on record to accomplish that at a single state championship. She placed third in the 3200m run on Saturday, adding to her third-place finish in the 1600m run on Friday and her role in the 4x800m relay. During the 1600, Troester broke the five-minute mark for the first time, smashing her previous school record by about seven seconds.
“My goal was to just go out and compete. I know there were girls that had sub-five times that I wanted to compete with, so I knew if I just stuck on them, even for a couple of laps, I’d have a pretty good chance of breaking five,” she said. “Usually, when you break five, you medal, so [I was] just going after that,” she said.
The Lady Tigers won two relay medals on Saturday, their first in 20 years. The 4x800m team of Kristin Probst, Gracie Woods, Reese Finley, and Troester finished seventh with a time of 9:28.90. The 4x400m team of Probst, Woods, Finley, and Alaina Norman also placed seventh, finishing in 4:03.32. For Woods, Norman, and Probst, who finished ninth in the 4x400 last season, this year’s event offered a “sense of redemption,” Woods said. “This year we came out and we were like, ‘This is our year. We are getting this medal no matter what it takes.”
Norman added a sixth-place finish in the shot put. Jenna Belcher, who broke school records in the 200m dash and long jump on Friday and won a long jump medal, finished 14th in the triple jump on Saturday.
Zion Allen, Republic’s sole boys competitor, earned medals in both his events. He finished seventh in the long jump (6.86m) and tied for fifth in the high jump (1.93m). He ran track only two seasons and finished with three career state medals.
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