Track & Field: Waggoner wins state discus title

Douglas standout Jessica Waggoner put the exclamation point on her senior season Friday afternoon, winning the state title in the discus at the NIAA 4A State Championships at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas.

Waggoner's throw of 143 feet, 10 inches was good enough to break the Del Sol stadium record and clinched the state title by more than seven feet.

Waggoner finishes her track career at Douglas having broken school records in the shot put and discus a total of eight times. She also leaves as the regional meet record holder in the discus at 153-09, which was one of the top throws in the country this year.

Another highlight for the Tigers over the weekend came from freshman Cara Dunkelman, who broke the 24-year-old school record in the 800 with a time of 2:17.97 (Michele Trimble was the school's previous record holder at 2:19.41, set in 1985).

Senior Liz Nickles was the state runner-up in the triple jump at 36.4.75, which was just an inch and a quarter short of tying the school record.

Jessica Gorton turned in a sixth- and seventh-place finish in the high jump and long jump respectively, Minneah Holdridge took eighth in the discus with a personal best throw of 110-02 and Jordan Cruz was sixth in the boys' 200 at 22.68 seconds.

Minden's Sierra Lutheran High School was a strong entry in the 1A competition as the Falcons were state runners up in the boys meet behind Spring Mountain and the girls took 10th place.

Junior Wade Meddles shattered his own state record in the 3,200, running it in 9:36.96 to complete a quartet of titles for himself.

He also won the 800 (1:59.80), 1,600 (4:26.14) and ran the anchor leg on the 4x800 squad of Preston Lyons, Nathan Conover and Levi Grabow to take the title with a time of 8:38.21.

Nick DePaoli won the 400 with a time of 51.85 and the 4x400 relay squad of Lyons, Conover, Bob DePaoli and Nick DePaoli won its race with a time of 3:36.96.

On the girls' side, Becky Grabow turned in a pair of third-place finishes in the 1,600 and 3,200 and teamed with Emilie Weiss, Courtney Elom and Phoebe Mark to take third in the 4x800.