By CONOR NICHOLL
Highly touted Lakin freshman Colter Oldham opened his high school track career at the Cimarron Invitational on Tuesday. He won all four of his events in the seven-team meet. Oldham picked up golds in the discus, high jump, shot put and javelin.
That helped Lakin win the meet with 202 points, well ahead of runner-up Holcomb’s 164. On the girls’ side, Holcomb was first with 126, followed by Lakin at 112, and Montezuma-South Gray at 102. Holcomb senior Nicole Ruda swept the three throwing events.
A big performance came in the pole vault where standout Dighton junior Max Neeley cleared 14 feet. Neeley won the 1A state meet with a 13-6 clearance last spring and enjoyed a prolific fall as Dighton’s quarterback.
Like Oldham, South Gray’s Allie Reed has enjoyed a superb freshman season. She won the high jump in 5-2. She averaged 6.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 3.3 steals a game in basketball.
Cimarron senior Jacee Wilson captured the triple jump in 34-2.5. In 2019, Wilson was second at state in the triple jump and fourth in the long jump. Wilson has committed to Evangel (Mo.) University for track and has returned after significant injury last spring.
Oldham enjoyed a decorated career in the younger ranks. Last May, he threw the lighter discus 198 feet, 4 inches at the Hi-Plains meet that ranked first nationally among all junior high throwers. The mark set new school and league records.
In football last fall, Oldham finished second on the Broncs with 45 tackles for a 5-4 team. In basketball this winter, Oldham earned honorable mention Hi-Plains League, the only one of the 17 players named all-conference who was a freshman.
At Cimarron, he captured the discus with a throw of 147-1, which was 21 feet past any competitor. He cleared 6-2 in the high jump and earned the tiebreaker against Holcomb sophomore Greg Martinez. He won the shot put by just over a foot with a mark of 42-3. Oldham captured the javelin in 155-9, nearly 21 feet ahead of any competitor.
Oldham’s discus would have taken eighth at 3A state last spring. None of the 16 state competitors were freshmen. The high jump and javelin would also have been top-eight.
Oldham’s addition helped the Broncs to a larger margin of victory than last year’s Cimarron’s meet. In 2021, Lakin won the meet with 124 points, 28 ahead of South Gray. However, the top-four squads all had at least 93 points. For the girls, Cimarron dominated the field in 2021 with 159 points, and Lakin was second with 96.
From the 2021 state track meet, Lakin returns senior sprinters Brady Hendrix and Servando Gonzalez, the Hi-Plains League basketball player of the year. Hendrix was fifth in the Class 3A 200-meter dash, and Gonzalez took ninth. Junior Lawson Weilert-Beymer earned 12th in the 800 and third in the 1,600. Senior Tyler Tarpley was 10th in the 300 hurdles.
Tarpley, Hendrix and Gonzalez helped the 400 relay to a sixth-place finish in 44.34. They also ran on the 1,600 relay that earned sixth in 3:34.77. Lakin earned 13th at state track.
At Cimarron, Hendrix won the 200 with a mark of 22.54. The 400 relay won in 43.88, and the 1,600 relay won in 3:37.31. Both relays included Tarpley, Gonzalez and Hendrix.
Weilert-Beymer won the 1,600 in 4:42.36, and the 3,200 with 10:25.64.
