The Manitou Springs track and field team brought a lot of hardware home from the state meet, held at Lakewood’s Jeffco Stadium on May 20 and 21. Various Mustangs claimed medals, one of which was a state championship.

Bella Coscetti claimed Manitou’s lone state championship of the event as she took the Class 3A girls triple-jump title. Her best leap of 37 feet, 8.75 inches, was just a quarter of an inch better than Northridge’s Savanna Amack. It was the cherry on top of a very solid meet for Coscetti and the Mustangs overall.

“It was mildly important because she wanted to check that box of all the hard work she has done since she was little,” coach Anna Mack said. “Bella has been doing track three times as long as everyone else and it was that checkmark to remind herself that it all really did pay off.”

The departing senior, who’s committed to Arkansas State track and field, also finished third in the long jump, ninth in the 300-meter hurdles and fourth in the pole vault.

She certainly would have liked another gold medal or two, but she put together one of the best overall meets by a Manitou athlete in a long time. It was a great finale for her high school career.

“I couldn’t have hoped for anything better,” Coscetti said. “Especially that day. It was good weather, and I got to compete with a bunch of my friends and have my teammates there. It was a great way to end the season.”

The girls also had a solid showing in the 800-sprint medley relay. The team of Kailey Vigil, Adele Goodwin, Kayla Apotheker and Anna Kilpela finished 13th after barely making the cut to get to state.

Seeking the best team finish since 2014, the boys team also put together a respectable showing, bringing home some medals of their own and also taking down some school records.

The 4×800 relay team of Lairden Rogge, Henry Ilyasova, Cody Kelley and Kian O’Boyle stayed close to the front of the pack for the entire race before overtaking The Classical Academy to finish third behind Frontier Academy and Liberty Common. Their time of 8 minutes, 16.55 seconds now stands as a school record in the event.

Rogge and Ilyasova got their names on other school records: Rogge ran the 200-meter dash in 22.10 and Ilyasova finished the 1,600 in 4:25.56. Those times were good enough for fifth and fourth place, respectively.

Rogge added a third-place finish in the 400.

“It’s good to see that some of my hard work has been paying off in little increments,” Rogge said. “There is always more though. I still need to break that 400 record and win some state titles. There is more to do.”

The Mustangs had great showings in the field events, as well. John Maynard took third in the high jump and Anthony Snow disrupted predictions as he took third in the discus.

The Mustangs finished with 50 team points, good for fifth place. Mack’s goal heading in was a Top 5 finish so, although they accomplished that goal, it helped her and the team realize that this program is very much on the rise.

“Top 5 was my goal and we met that goal,” Mack said. “Of course, we were hoping to get third or fourth, but Henry was sick and the weather wasn’t cooperating, and all those things set us back a bit, but we still did awesome.

“It confirms that we’re doing some stuff right and hopefully it will encourage more kids to come out next year.”

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