You might say that the Fort Gibson Tigers hurdled the competition on the way to bringing home three medals from the Class 4A state track championships this spring. On the girl’s side, sophomore Katie Smith, who placed sixth last year in the 100-meter hurdles at state as a freshman, finished fourth in that event this year and for the guy’s Josh Miller returned from state with a fourth-place medal in the 110-meter hurdles and fifth in the 300-meter hurdles.

“Katie had the best year out of our girls,” said track coach Scott Bethel.

“She won five meets during the season in the 100 and qualified for state with a third place finish at regionals in the 300. Addy Whiteley, who also medaled at state last year finishing sixth in the 400-meterr sprint, had a tough season. She had a quad injury coming out of basketball and only competed in three meets but did qualify for state again in the 200 and 400-meter races. But she re-aggravated the quad injury at state in the 400 and struggled to finish and wasn’t able to compete in the 200.”

Bethel also discussed other members of the girl’s squad that competed this year.

“Stephanie Hickman also competed and finished third in the conference meet in the high jump. Lillianna Perez is a freshman that ran the 800 meters and finished first at Tahlequah, second at Wagoner and had two third place finishes. Karli Dixon is a junior who ran the 400 meters and placed second at Hilldale and had three fourth place finishes and Sereniti Caudle is a sophomore and another hurdler who had a third-place finish at Inola. We’re still a pretty young team on the girls’ side so hopefully next year we’ll have some more relay teams, and we have a good group of eighth graders coming. I’m sure Katie will continue to improve and hopefully Addy will be in good health.”

As noted at the start, Josh Miller was the standout for the boy’s side of things for the Tigers with two medals.

“Josh is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever been around in track,” said Bethel. “In addition to track he is also in the band and on the swim team which I think really helped him develop more stamina and upper body strength this year. He’s going to
Oklahoma Baptist on a track scholarship next year and we’ll sure miss him.”

Other members of the boy’s track team this year included junior Cooper Glascow who ran the mile and won the conference championship despite running with a stress fracture much of the year, Ben Parker who was a freshman this year and ran the 800 and the mile with second and third place finishes at different meets. Sophomore Brelynn Macomb was a 100-meter sprinter who finished fourth at Hilldale and third at Inola and the 4X100 relay team that consisted of Miller, Macomb, Cade Waggle and Santana Nunez that just missed qualifying for state.

“While we’ll miss Josh, I look forward to seeing what Ben, Brelynn and Cooper will do next year,” said Bethel.