Left to right, Toby Qualls, Hailey Hugelman, Coach Brian Pennington, Trevor Mead and Maria Lopez at the Carson Invitational. (Photo courtesy Don Qualls)

By Don Qualls

On April 16 Mammoth High School track and field entered their third and final  invitational in preparation for the upcoming CIF league preliminary elimination round. Coach Pennington took four athletes to the Carson Invitational. Eighteen high schools of all sizes participated in this huge event, and top athletes from all over the state of Nevada were present. Mammoth athletes that attended were freshman Hailey Hugelman, Maria Lopez,  and Trevor Mead, as well as sophomore Toby Qualls.

Qualls purposely ran some shorter distances to get some speed training in preparation for a run at the CIF’s and a possible second state run. The tenth grader turned heads in his opening mile run. Qualls entered the varsity race against many of Nevada’s top milers and turned in a outstanding time of 4:37. He finished in the top three, one-one hundredth of a second behind second place and four seconds behind the winner. Both boys ahead of Qualls were seniors. He was easily the top freshman, sophomore finisher.

Qualls then ran the 800 m race, a race he has never even practiced before. Once again, he entered in the varsity division and medaled, with a outstanding time of 2:06. The winning time for this race was 2:02.

Freshman Trevor Mead ran three events. He finished highest in the JV 800 m race, finishing 12th with a time of 2:42. Only three freshmen had faster times than Meads.

Hailey Hugelman, a freshman, had her strongest showing in the varsity 400 m run, where she finished 13th, with a time of 73 seconds.

Maria Lopez, normally a strong contender, became ill, and had to sit out most of her races.

All of the Mammoth track team will try to go as far as possible in the CIF process, which for Mammoth High School, will kick off on April 27.