The Montgomery County girls track team is already enjoying an outstanding season that included an Eastern Missouri Conference championship and two school records.

Now, the team is hoping to leave Jefferson City this weekend with some all-state medals.

Six members of the team will be making a trip to the Class 3 state meet this weekend at Adkins Stadium at the campus of Jefferson City High School. They are sophomores Samantha Turner, Kaylee Daume, Aubrey Janes and Austyn Robinson and freshmen Emma Rodgers and Mieka-Ray Wise.

MCHS will send a total of eight athletes to the state meet, which starts on Friday and ends on Saturday. The Wildcats’ other state qualifiers are seniors Tyler Erwin and Jadrian Thurmon.

All eight athletes qualified for Jefferson City based on their performances at the Class 3, Sectional 2 championship meet on May 17 at Jim Blacklock Field. Turner won the shot put and placed third in the discus, Erwin placed first in the long jump, Thurmon came in second in the 1,600, Daume finished third in the shot put, Rodgers finished fourth in the 800 and the 1,600-meter relay team of Janes, Robinson, Wise and Rodgers placed second.

Erwin will be competing at state for the fourth time, Turner and Thurmon will make their second state appearances and Daume, Janes, Robinson, Rodgers and Wise will make their state debuts.

Robinson was thrilled to clear the sectional hurdle. Last year, she competed in the 400 in sectionals, but came up short of a state-qualifying bid.

“It’s awesome,” Robinson said. “I love it. Obviously, I didn’t make it last year. It was hard on me because I really wanted to go. But I got to redeem myself this year. So I made it. But I couldn’t have done it without my team.”

Erwin, who has six allstate medals, jumped 22-2.5 at sectionals to advance to state.

Thurmon finished with a 4:29.73 in the 1,600 to make his first trip to state since his freshman year.

Turner threw 36-1.5 in the shot put and 116-4 in the discus. Last year, she finished seventh in the shot put to earn all-state honors. Turner is the school record holder in both shot put and discus.

Daume, who was a sectional qualifier in the shot put last year, threw a 33-0.50 at sectionals to earn her first state berth.

Rodgers ran a 2:29.36 in the 800. She ran the third leg of the 4x400 team that finished with a 4:14.32, a little over a second behind Blair Oaks.

A week before, the 4x400 won a district championship at Owensville with a 4:19.42. With the second-place finish at sectionals, MCHS qualified for state in the 4x400 in the girls division for the first time since 2021.

“I think it’s really special since we’re all very young,” said Janes, who ran the anchor leg of the relay. “I think we have only more years to improve and since we’re already doing this good as a young team, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like in the next two years while we’re still here.”

The Wildcats had 11 athletes competing in sectionals. Senior Miley Rieke (4x100) and sophomores Anna Klekamp (4x100) and Jillian Weekley (pole vault and 100-meter hurdles) were MCHS’ other sectional participants, but didn’t qualify for state.