The Barton Community College women’s track team put up a good battle but came up just short in its pursuit of a Region VI championship. The Cougars closed strong in an effort to catch Coffeyville but the gap was too big.
Coffeyville ended the meet with 173 followed by Barton at 159. Cloud County was a distant third with 87.5 as the meet turned into a 2-team battle.
Lydia Mato and Vanessa Style both had tremendous meets for the Cougars. Mato earned the Athlete of the Meet award after winning four events and taking second in a third. Vanessa Style won both her individual races and ran on the winning 4x400m relay team.
It was a day to remember for Mato, the sophomore standout who won the NJCAA cross country championships in the fall.
Mato started the morning with a close win the 5000m in 19:46.05 – winning by four seconds. She won the Mile by the same margin with a time of 5:29.46. The lone event she didn’t win was the 800m where she was second in 2:24.73 to Cloud’s Stephanie Barrett who won in 2:23.03.
Mato got back to winning ways in the 3000m, blowing away the field in 10:34.8 – winning by a full 14 seconds. Teammate Holly Pierce was sixth in 11:43.98.
Mato also rolled by her competition in the 1000m in 3:20.97 – 10 seconds better than Barrett.
Five events, four gold medals and a silver. That is a day to remember for sure.
Vanessa Style capped her 3-gold day in the final event, teaming with sister Tamara Style, Widline Lageroy and O’Neish Glover to win the 4x400m relay in 3:55.54.
She won gold in the 200m in 24.98 and in the 60m hurdles in 8.56. She was joined in the hurdles by Tasha Frazier in second 8.86 and Marissa Oglesby fifth in 9.01 as Barton dominated the hurdles. Lageroy was seventh in the 200m in 25.87.
Frazier won a gold in the long jump to go with her silver in the hurdles. Frazier took first with a leap of 18-9.25. N’Kia Jones was seventh in 16.2.25. Frazier also took fourth in the pentathlon with 2897 points.
Jones was fifth in the triple jump with a leap of 35-9.5 and Bethany Bowman was third in the high jump with a 5-1.25 as Barton scored several points in the jumps.
Lageroy was second for Barton in the 600m in 1:40.71 and Tamara Style fifth in the 60m in 7.81. The Cougars went 5-7 in the 400m with Glover taking fifth in 58.9 and Brooklyn Polk seventh in 59.11.
Barton scored points with its distance relay teams as well. The 4x800m team was fourth as Holly Pierce, Julee McAtee, Yazmin Rendon, and Trenna Cox ran a 10:33.38. The distance medley team of McAtee, Polk, Cox, and Rendon was sixth in 14:15.01.
In the throws, Elizabeth Evans was seventh in the shot put with a heave of 39-7-75.
Barton will head to the NJCAA National Championships on March 6-7 in Albuquerque, N.M.