OMAHA -- After several close calls, Wahoo Neumann’s wait for a championship banner ended Saturday with a team title in the state track and field meet at Omaha Burke.
The Neumann girls captured a Class B championship with 60.75 points. McCook was second with 43.5 and Scottsbluff finished third at 41.
The win snapped a recent trend of second-place finishes at state for the Lady Cavaliers. Neumann’s girls finished five points back of a track title last spring and led this year’s C-1 state championship basketball game through three quarters before falling to Norfolk Catholic.
Both losses served as motivation heading into last weekend’s state meet.
“Ever since our loss in basketball, we wanted to put up a first place banner,” said Sara Reeves, who ran the anchor legs of Neumann’s runner-up 3,200 and 1,600-meter relays. “We were determined to come in here and get it... We’ve got such great team unity. We work together and everybody is there for each other.”
The Neumann girls entered Saturday’s competition with a renewed sense of confidence when Class B favorite Scottsbluff finished with just one seventh-place score in the discus after being projected to place three participants.
The Lady Cavaliers regained the team lead behind sophomore McKenzie Fujan’s win in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles (46.16), along with Holly Fujan’s fifth-place effort in the event (47.86).
McKenzie Fujan added points with a third-place finish of 15.51 in the 100-meter high hurdles. She was denied second in the event by .03 seconds.
“That loss made me kind of mad,” she said. “I was really focused on winning (the 300 hurdles) because I knew I could make up those points for my team... I had to make good time over the first five hurdles and the rest I just had to finish.”
Senior Lizzy Mach clinched Neumann’s victory by qualifying for the finals on her last attempt in the triple jump and placing third at 36-4 1/4.
Mach recorded a win in the 100 hurdles (15.37) Saturday morning to secure her fourth state title is as many seasons. She concludes her career with 10 state medals and wins in three different events.
“It’s a blessing,” Mach said of her state meet success. “When I was a freshman our old hurdle coach told me that I could be a state champion and I didn’t believe him.”
Mach experienced a nervous moment when she hit the second to last hurdle of Saturday’s finals, but she remained focused.
“I lost a little bit of balance, but I knew I had to keep going because our team needed those points,” Mach said. “I wanted it really bad.”
Neumann picked up additional points on Saturday from its 1,600-meter relay team of Megan Meduna, McKenzie Fujan, Abby Pospisil and Reeves who placed second in 4:06.32. The Lady Cavaliers’ combination of McKenzie Fujan, Meduna, Holly Fujan and Emily Kmiecik finished sixth in the 400-meter relay (50.79). Freshman Alyssa Stanek placed seventh in the high jump at 5-0.
Coach Tom Gerdes believes his team’s success is a byproduct of its “one team, one goal” motto which has been embraced throughout the season. The state title is the first for Neumann’s girls track team since 1988.
“They know they are a part of a bigger picture,” Gerdes added. “They always know they’re doing it for themselves and somebody else. That helps push you a little bit harder and achieve a little bit higher. I hope that team concept is something that we never lose.”
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