Sports
Region Track Meet Sees Four On to State
by Rachel McCloskey
On Wednesday, May 5th, the Meridian van, with Coach Travis Madsen in the front seat and four girls and one guy in the back rows, headed up to Wendover for the region track meet and their second meet ever. Their first meet was also held in Wendover, but the second was sadly canceled due to wet weather conditions. These dedicated five knew the drill.
Arriving in Wendover at around noon, they each prepared physically and mentally for their events. Theresa Rather and Allison competed against each other in the hard dash to the finish line for the 100 meter. They both ran with all their hearts. Theresa finished with a time of 13.67 seconds and left the others in the dust taking first place.
The day went on slowly as the rest of the runners ran their events. Marc Luthy ran the 100 meter boys and finished in fifth in the preliminary round with a time of 13.02. He made it to the finals and ran a hard run on his aching knee and came out with 13.33 to take sixth over all.
All four girls got together and fought against each other in the girl’s 200 meter preliminary. Rather had a time of 29.30 seconds, followed by Rachel McCloskey who took fifth with a time of 32.35 seconds, Warnick seventh with 33.16 seconds and Jenna Crowther following closely behind with 33.49 seconds.
Rather and McCloskey made it to the final round of the 200 meter which took place later in the day. Rather ran an amazing race and was beat in the last seconds resulting in a secong place by less than one step. She finished second. McCloskey finished in fifth behind her.
Crowther was ready when she stepped up to the starting block for her 400 meter. She ran a good race and finished with a time of 1:17.83 putting her in second place. McCloskey also ran her 800 meter and regardless of the head wind, finished strong. She finished, taking third place in the region, with a time of 3:17.15.
“I was happy about their overall performance. I felt like everyone gave it their best and were successful because of it.” Exclaimed the content Coach Travis. Congratulations to the track team for all their hard work. They are all excited to compete and watch the events up at state on May 14th and 15th at the BYU track. GOOD LUCK!!
Awesome Meridian Soccer Season Ends
by Sanha LeeAmazing, unexpected, fantastic, and fun. Those are the adjectives that best describe Meridian boys’ soccer team this year.
Amazing and unexpected. It was a terrific season this year. There were actually some W’s on the record. It probably seems weird, but not for Meridian School. First, a little bit of history on the soccer team: there was a team 2 years ago and it was the first in 8 years. Only 5 games were played and none of them were region games which means they were not recorded. All the games were a loss, but it was a great chance to make a first step back into the soccer world. The following year, Meridian was admitted to the 2A region which had 3 of top 5 teams in 2A in the state. The boys endured a 0-12 record with 5 goals scored and 96 goals attempted. Wow. Every student thought that Meridian was the losing school in soccer and they did not expect to win any games. There was no support, no fans whatsoever.
But guess what? This year, Meridian had an amazing season: 4-7 overall record, 3-4 in region, won the first round of the region tournament, took 4th in region, and went to state. No on in the school expected this to happen. Meridian was wasted in the first round at state by Millard, 12-1, but hey, if you see the record last year, it was 11-0, 8-0, 9-1, 7-0, 8-0, 10-0, 13-1, 10-0, 7-1, 6-0! The team just got blown away in every single game by having 96, 96 goal attempted! (Just to let people who don’t know soccer very well, in soccer 2-0 or 3-0, you say that that game was wasted or one-sided game.) This year, Meridian actually wasted teams like Mount Vernon and West Ridge Academy by outscoring a lot! Players who scored: the two captains, Sanha Lee and Allen Kim lead with 9 and 8 goals, Shivan Lingam with 2, and Fernando Amaya and Tyler Berry with 1 each.
Fun and Fantastic. Soccer is not just the record; overall, the way the boys played, scored, passed, and shot the ball was just really fun and fantastic. One of the two captains, Allen Kim said, “It was a great season and fun; it was my first season and I really enjoyed it. We had lots of goals which we were not expecting.” Meridian’s goalie, Mitsuo Okuma added, “It was cold. We had good time. It was better than last year. Sanha was really good and Allen was showing off a lot. Koreans were good. I don’t know about Americans. I hope next year they can win the state.” Defender Rodolfo Amada added, “We had lots good goals and more energy from the team.” Mitchell Wahl also added, “It was fun to win and play. It was fun to be in 1A, too.” At last, but the best, our outstanding, awesome, and successful Coach Smith said, “I was really proud of our soccer team this year. It was a lot of fun to have a season. It would’ve been nice if we played longer. Even though we lost more games in the end of the year, I could see that we played better as a team. And I will always remember the two games that we played in the snow: one we killed and got killed.”
Congratulations to Meridian Boys’ soccer team!
Sanha Lee
Allen Kim
Mitsuo Okuma
Josh Crowther
Chase McCloskey
Mitchell Wahl
Casey Wahl
Rodolfo Amaya
Marc Luthy
Patrick Mortola
Fernando Amaya
Shivan Lingham
Andrew Jo
Tyler Berry
Coach: Mr. Smith
Assist coach: Mr. Watabe
Fans: Travis Madsen, Crowthers, and McCloskeys
NBA, Where Amazing Happens
by Sanha LeeThe NBA playoffs have begun and things are already heating up the NBA fans with lots of upsets and major highlights. NBA playoffs are played by 16 teams, 8 teams fromthe Western Conference and 8 teams from the Eastern Conference. They play best of seven in each series to get up to the next round. Higher seeds get the home court advantage meaning they get one more game at their home court. For example, for the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz games, as the Denver Nuggets have the higher seed, their schedule is: two games at Denver, two games in Utah, one game in Denver, one game in Utah and the last game in Denver.
Usually, NBA basketball, which is professional, doesn’t have as much defense as the NCAA because they get paid to do it and get lazy. However, during the playoffs, as now the games are a matter of getting the championship, the games are getting more physical and tough which means it gets a lot more fun than the regular season. If you like playing basketball, or watching basketball, go watch some NBA games. It is dynamic and fun. It is better to have a team to cheer for so pick a city or state you like and cheer for them. For example, you live in Utah, so why don’t you cheer for Utah Jazz? Trust me, as you get to know who the players are and what their basketball styles are, it is really enjoyable. Go finish your homework and watch NBA games if you have spare time. There are reasons why some of the guys go crazy about NBA.
Daily NBA Playoff Schedule : http://www.nba.com/playoffs2010/index.html
NBA Playoff Brackets : http://www.nba.com/playoffs2010/series/index.html?ls=nbaplayoffsTab
You, Too, Can Play In the NBA (kind of)
by Tim LeiThis year, the NBA (National Basketball Association) invited all fans who are 13 years of age or older and who are a registered member of NBA.com to participate in the games of the NBA tournament.
Fans can create their own bracket and potentially win prizes anytime during the Playoff series before Game 1. Participants who garner the most points over the course of the Playoffs and Final will win a 42 inch LCD TV, video gaming system, 2010 Basketball related video game, and League Pass Broadband for the 2010 – 2011 Season. Everyone is eligible to win prizes, but you can also heat up the competition by playing against your friends in public or private leagues.
Meridian School is also playing a part in this “Pick n Roll” established by Cam Whitham, a senior who is a big Magic fan. He created a league called Meridian League and invited all the students from Meridian to join it. “We know the NBA so well and I thought it would be fun to compete against each other. Also, this is my senior years so it is the last time to compete with them. I went to the NBA website one day and found out you can make your own league with friends, so I asked everyone I thought would be interested to fill out the bracket.”
The contest has brought some surprises for many in the Meridian League. “There are so many upsets. Every series in the West could be an upset, so I might be in trouble. GO MAGIC!!, ” said Cam who put DAL, DEN, and LAL to win the series; these teams are all struggling now.
There are a mysterious amount of members in the Meridian League, including juniors, seniors, and also some alumnus! The good news is the league is still inviting students who are interested to join private league, the current password to join it is “Goku.”
Soccer Team Qualified For State Tournament
by Rodolfo Amaya
For the first time in history, the Meridian soccer team qualified for the state championship. Last week’s region soccer tournament was fought with great tenacity, especially the first two games. The first game took place at Roy against Christian Heritage on Thursday. This team the Mongooses had lost to a few weeks back 3 to 0. The game was tough on the Meridian team for they were tied 1 to 1. After the halftime break however, the Mongooses made a surprising recovery and scored two goals. The final score ended up being 3 to 2 with the Christian Heritage team scoring one last goal five minutes before the end of the game.
The next day, on Friday, the team played a game against ICS, the number one team in the region. The Mongooses put up an impressive fight; however, some morale was lost after the ICS team scored the first goal towards the late start of the second half, this shot from midfield as labeled by last year’s number one region player, Sanha Lee was “a goal that made us lose our momentum and had a great impact on how we would play for the rest of the game.” ICS was quick to score another goal, however, the morale was not completely lost and the hopes were still up for the Mongooses had been really close to scoring the whole game. Towards the end of the game the Mongoose team scored a penalty kick by Sanha however as Casey Wahl said, “there should’ve been many more penalty kicks for our team,” something to which everyone on the team would agree. The final score was 2 to 1.
Finally, on Saturday, the exhausted Mongooses played the team from Wendover. This athletic team defeated them 6 to 0, this being their 5th game that week. The Wendover Wildcats scored quickly, with the first goal coming in shortly after the 1st half had started. The tournament however, ended favorably for the Mongooses because they made it to the state championship, which will begin on April 28. The team is really excited and looks forward to putting a good show in the championship after a week and a half of rest.
Rookie Athletes Perform Well At First Meet
by Allison WarnickMeridian School’s track team participated in the first track meet of the year on April 20th. They crowded in the school van, with Coach Madsen driving, and left at 12:30 in the afternoon – all the students typically excited to miss the last few classes of the day – embarking on the 3-something hour drive to Wendover.
After the lengthy drive spent watching the students’ favorite tv show Lost and dedicatedly finishing homework, the team reached Wendover’s high school at 3:30 and changed into the brand-new green-and-black Meridian jerseys. Soon after signing in at the meet, Marc Luthy started off the competition in the first event with the Long Jump and High Jump. “I also ran the 100m. I look forward to practices throughout this month to help me improve, but I think we all did great and the overall outcome was awesome!”
Cheering Marc on got the rest of the team ready for their competitions soon after. Even though the majority of the team had never been to a track meet before, the entire team performed fantastically, and the first-time-runners said they really enjoyed it. Theresa Rather, one of the more experienced track team members “was so excited for our first meet this year… I had high hopes for our team, which were for the most part fulfilled. I feel like I did well, and I’m happy about getting 3rd in my 200-meter race… but to say the least I was very displeased with the Tooele girls that I was racing against. Can’t wait for the next meet and to race against them again!”
Coach Madsen seemed pleased with the results of the first meet. “It’s a pleasure to see everyone improve. We have a very small but motivated team that is a great representation of the Meridian community.” The results reflect that spirit: Watch out, competition!
Results
Tyler Berry (100 M): 13.62
Tyler Berry (400 M): 1:04:01
Jenna Crowther (200 M): 33.39
Jenna Crowther (400 M): 1:16:65, taking 1st
Sanha Lee (100 M.): 12.57
Marc Luthy (100 M): 12.63
Marc Luthy (High Jump): 5’2.00”
Marc Luthy (Long Jump): 16’06.00”
Rachel McCloskey (200 M): 33.00
Rachel McCloskey (800 M): 3:14:79, taking 3rd
Theresa Rather (100 M.): 13.67
Theresa Rather (200 M): 29.12, taking 3rd
Allison Warnick (100 M.): 14.77
Allison Warnick (200 M): 32.90
Playing Field Leveled for Soccer Team
by Casey Wahl
Last year was Meridian’s first year of having a varsity boys soccer team. Meridian was put into a region with mostly 2A teams. This region had a majority of top ranked 2A teams which led to an 0-13 season for the Mongoose. They were outscored 99-7.
