Matt Sholtis
Sports Editor
The Apex Men’s track team won the SWAC
Conference title in dominating fashion on Wednesday scoring 194.5 points. The
closest team to the Cougars was Green Hope who scored 111 points. This was
Apex’s second consecutive conference championship.
Events were split between the two day
meet. The first event of the meet was the 4x800 meter relay. It was a highly
anticipated race on the boys’ side as four teams (Panther Creek, Apex, Green
Hope, and Cary) were all within a few seconds of each other. Apex pushed the
pace the first three legs and had a pretty good lead, but Panther Creek’s
fourth leg battled back and passed Apex down the home stretch to win the race
by less than a second. In the 100 meter dash Apex owns the top sprinter in the
conference on both the guys and girls side; seniors Tyler Cook and Sydnei
Murphy. Both had the fastest time in prelims and both took home the conference
title. Murphy was the only girl to break 12 seconds while Cook was the only guy
to break 11 seconds. Apex continued its dominance in the sprints with a 4x200
meter relay victory, edging out Green Hope. The Cougars had another strong showing
in the 1600 meter run. Sophomore Ben Savino and junior Derek Duin stayed in the
front pack for the majority of the race and Duin even held the lead for 400
meters or so. Senior Wyatt Miller also was in the race and had a big kick on
the final lap to catapult him all the way up to sixth place, while Duin and
Savino finished third and fourth respectively. Apex was the only team to have
three runners score (top 8) in that event. Apex also dominated in the field
events on day one. The Cougars went 1-2 in the pole vault with senior Michael
Utecht winning and junior Zach Taft finishing second, and senior Jon Stephens
won the long jump.
After day one the Apex guys already had
a 60 point lead, but they were far from done. Cook went on to finish third in
both the 200 meter dash and the 400 meter dash, and would eventually win MVP
honors for the first time in his four years. In the 800 meter run, senior Ryan
Johnson came from behind to finish second just behind Green Hope’s Henry Pehr.
Just like the 1600 meter run, Apex had three runners score in the 3200 meter
run as well. Savino and Duin finished third and fourth while junior Lawson
Benfield finished sixth. Apex dominated the rest of the conference, nearly
breaking their scoring record that they set last year. The Cougars repeated as
champions scoring 194.5 points, 83.5 points clear of second place Green Hope.
Apex will try to defend their Mideast regional title this Saturday at Garner.
