Cove advances 16 athletes to Area Meet at Midway

By TJ MAXWELL
Cove Leader-Press

KILLEEN – The Copperas Cove track and field program had a good showing at the District 8-6A Track and Field meet at Killeen’s Leo Buckley Stadium, especially in the field events.
Copperas Cove school record holder Kyle Stifflemire easily won the pole vault as part of a 1-2-4 finish to qualify in three of the four spots. He holds the new school record of 16 feet, 2 inches but only needed to clear 15 feet to win the district gold.
“I did my best for the conditions that were out here,” said Stifflemire. “I could have done better if I had mentally prepared better. I came into this a little bit too lax. I like to stay relaxed, but I was a little too relaxed. It would have been good to get more practice at higher heights so later at area and regionals I could score more points or my team.”
Tim Doyle earned the silver medal with a vault of 13 feet and senior Darius Fuselier clerade the 12-feet-6 mark for the final spot at the Area meet to be Thursday, April 19 at Midway High School in Waco.
“I did really good towards the end,” said Doyle. “However, I could have worked my hands more and actually gotten the height.”
Head track coach Keith Stifflemire is proud of the groups’ accomplishment.
“(Kyle) did have a really good week last week, hitting that big bar down at the Texas Relays was huge to do it under that kind of pressure,” the coach and father said of his son’s accomplishment. “That lets me be a little bit more assured that he can handle the pressure of big bars and stiff competition because he’ll see some. 
“Tim is the one I’m really excited about. We needed these points at the district meet and he came through and got that silver for us. I’m just so happy for him. He’s worked so hard to get to where he is and he’s peaking right here at the end and that’s what we want. We hope he continues to get big bars and the area meet. He could very well earn himself a spot at the regional track meet as well.”
Senior Daveon Thomas earned a pair of silver medals to advance. He finished second in the shot put with a throw of 48 feet, 4 ½ inches and second in the discus with a throw of 168-feet-8.
Junior Quinton Ford qualified with a silver medal in the long jump with a mark of 21-feet-6 and A.J. Acosta earned a bronze in the 200-meter dash and Neyland Block advances with a 6-feet-2 lead in the high jump.
The 4x400-meter relay team of Kenyal Knight, Jyren Key, Rusty Cochran and Yvel Loius also qualified with a third-place finish and time of 3 minutes, 30.78 seconds.
The foursome of Acosta, Jameel Rice, Adrian Alejos, Isaiah Hawkins finished in fifth and Ford finished sixth in the triple jump with a mark of 43-feet-7.
Aiden Chace cleared the 5-feet-4 mark for gold in the girls’ high and Jaela Rice earned the bronze with a 5-feet leap.
The 4x200-meter relay team of Anayah Copeland (Soph), Ashli Hawkins (Soph), Livana Wallace (Soph) and Nadia Robinson (Jr.) also qualified for the Area Meet with a season best time of 1:45.90.
“We are super excited about how far they have come and the whole team will be back,” said girls’ head track coach Vance McAnally. We also had some JV sprinters who did very well too.  Our JV finished 4th, only four points out of second.
“The relays on the JV all placed very well and had their best times of the year.  The future is bright for Copperas Cove Lady Dawg Track.”   
Alisha Donnatien was the gold medal winner in the discus (85-feet-8) and silver medal winner in the shot put (32-feet-2 ½). Danielle Diaz also won gold in the 400m dash with a time of 1:04.78 as did Olivia Nageeullah in the pole vault with a vault of 7-feet-6. Ariana Eseroma won the long jump with a leap of 14-feet-8 3/4).