The Southeast Valley boys’ track & field team took eight events to the state coed track & field meet last week that took place over Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Des Moines competing in the class 2A competition.  

On Thursday, May 19th of the state meet, Aaron Graves earned team points for the Jaguars earning state medalist honors. Aaron finished 5th in the shot put throwing a career PR and a school record of 53’ 9.75” on his last throw of the day.

Also competing in the hot conditions on Thursday in the 3200m run was Oscar Hanson and Cooper Nuss. Oscar edged Cooper as they finished the race to finish 19th in a time of 10:42.69 and Cooper’s finish was 21st in a time of 10:43.55. Cooper also finished 21st at state a year ago in the same event. Tre Fisher competed in the prelims of the 200m dash as well on Saturday. His time of 23.49 was 21st overall time in the race, but needed to be in the top 8 to advance to Saturday’s finals.

On Friday, the Jaguars had Kaleb Scott, the 2021 runner-up in the high jump. Kaleb was able to clear 6’ 4” to take 6th place in the high jump. Kaleb had been fighting a couple injuries the last couple weeks and struggled on his attempts at 6’ 6”.

The 4 x 200m relay team of Carl Berglund, Jace Hanson, Kolson Kruse and Tre Fisher took to the track on Friday as well. Their time of 1:35.62 was 19th place overall.

Saturday, Cooper Nuss returned to the track as the Jaguars’ final event of the weekend. Cooper ran a career best time of 4:40.44 to claim 15th in the class 2A 1600m race. Cooper had finished 20th in the same event a year ago.

“We went in with higher expectations and the weekend didn’t quite go the way we were hoping. We were excited to see Aaron and Kaleb finish their careers as state placewinners at the state meet,” commented Coach Nuss. “As we told the boys, it was one heck of a season overall. Winning 7 of our 9 meets including the conference meet and the state qualifying meet team titles, 8 state qualifying events, 4 school records and 7 conference champion events is something that will be hard to match.”

Coach Nuss would like to thank several that made this season successful. “First off, thank you to our seniors on the team, especially Tre, Kaleb, Asa, Zach, Ty and Reed who have been part of the program since their freshmen year and really grew to lead this team. It was fun to see your passion for the sport.”

“I also have to send a big thank-you to Coach Kruse, Coach Duncan and Coach Murphy. None of our success this year happens without any of them. Their knowledge & passion for track & field & our athletes is second to none. Coach Murphy is willing to work with any of the areas and is great with stats and knowing where to place our guys in a meet. Coach Duncan gets all the credit with the success of our throwers. Coach Kruse has worked hard to make our jumpers the best, but also works a lot with handoff and block work,” added Coach Nuss. “Coach Kruse has also been with me as an assistant coach for 19 of my 20 years as a head coach. He has been a huge mentor and friend to me and while I hope he comes back to help once in a while next year, I wish him the best with his retirement.”