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Lady Rangers track ready for state

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The season began with most folks expecting Vista Ridge to have a presence at the state track meet in freshman distance runner Ashley Isham.

However, the end of the season will see several Lady Rangers running at today's Class 4A track championships as seven athletes will represent Vista Ridge.

The last month has been an amazing one for girls' track at Vista Ridge, including a team title at the District 25-4A meet, a Region IV team championship, a regional championship win by Isham in the 3,200 and a victory in the mile relay.

“Just getting to state is such a great accomplishment,” said Vista Ridge coach Katie Klinkovsky. “This is going to be a great experience for all the girls, and we've worked very hard to get to this point.”

The focus of that hard work showed two weeks ago at the Region IV championships in San Antonio, as Vista Ridge racked up 74 points to claim the school's first regional team track title.

Going into the meet, Klinkovsky said the team was not focused on winning the regional title. However, she admitted that the Lady Rangers had enough numbers to make a run for the title.

“You never want to focus too much on team titles at regionals,” she said. “But we had a lot of girls in the finals and they just took care of business.”

Isham did her part in her races, winning the 3,200 with a time of 11 minutes, 6.55 seconds and placing second in the 1,600 at 5:07.82.

A favorite to medal in both events, Isham (a top 10 finisher at state in cross country) is looking forward to her first state meet.

“This is pretty exciting for me. It's been a goal of mine to get to state,” Isham said. “I want to do my best and it would be pretty cool to come away with a medal.”

Isham is currently seeded second in the 3,200 and is ranked third in the 1,600.

A challenge for the freshman will come as she will have to run both races on the same day, instead of having a full day to rest.

However, Isham is taking the extra running work in stride.

“I recover pretty quickly for my races,” she said. “I'm not too worried about having to run both in one day.”

While Isham is expected to medal, Klinkovsky is also hopeful to see personal bests from Angela Gash in the long jump, Kaleigh Frazier in the 100 and from the mile relay team.

The mile relay team (Gash, Kristi Cooper, Megan Johnson and anchor leg Carrie Eubank) was one of the highlights of the year for Vista Ridge track with their regional win.

Shaving off nearly four seconds from their preliminary qualifying time, the Lady Rangers won the mile relay by over a full second (4:02.12) at regionals.

“The win by the girls in the mile relay was one of the biggest moments of the year,” Klinkovsky said. “It was just an amazing performance all the way around and the girls just left it all on the track.”

Klinkovsky also expects solid efforts from both Gash and Frazier in their respective events.

“I know that Angela and Kaleigh can compete with the best in the state,” Klinkovsky said.

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