A Marmaton Valley athlete came 17 seconds short of achieving Junior Olympics All-American status while competing at the national meet in Houston Saturday.
Gaby Tholen, running for the Girard Warriors, took ninth in the 1500-meter run with a time of 10:03.56, which was just behind Dania Towns of Motivated Missouri for AAU Junior Olympics All-American.
“We had some really good performances where kids PR’d in a big way. We also had a couple heart breaking performances, where we thought kids might do better but it just didn’t work out that way,” Warriors coach Nate Clevenger said. “The main thing is I think every one of our kids competed hard and enjoyed the experience. That experience will only help them in their upcoming years of competing in track and field.”
Tholen was the only Allen County athlete running for the Girard Warriors, but another athlete with Allen County roots also competed in Texas over the weekend. Dax Cunningham, who is the 8-year-old son of Iola native Alisha Cunningham and the grandson of Jeanne Cloud, competed in the high jump. He took 28th overall with a leap of 3’ 5”.
