Grand Island Central Catholic's Brent Moravec and Tali Fredrickson will lead a good contingent of GICC athletes into the state track meet Friday and Saturday at Burke Stadium in Omaha.
Both seniors qualified for state in four events. Moravec, who will join the Nebraska football program as a walk on next fall, will compete in the 110-meter high hurdles, the 300 intermediate hurdles, the 100 and the long jump.
Fredrickson - - who is a Wayne State volleyball recruit - - will run in the 100 hurdles, the 300 hurdles, the 400 relay and compete in the long jump.
"Brent and Tali both had great seasons for us all the way through," Central Catholic coach Keith Kester said. "They've been very good for us, usually scoring well in each meet in four different events, although it varied from meet to meet what those events would be."
Moravec will enter the state meet with the top Class C time in the 110 hurdles this season at 14.4. Kester said Moravec has been consistent late in the season.
"His times have dropped to where he's 14.4 to14.7 about every meet out regardless of whether he has competition next to him or not," Kester said. "It's good to see he's able to consistently run those types of times."
Fredrickson, who has qualified for state in seven different events over her career, is right at the top of the Class C state charts in the long jump.
"Tali has been there lots of times," Kester said. "She has a lot of experience at the state meet. Like Brent, she's gone against some of the top hurdlers in the state. I think both of them will go into the meet without being intimidated."
Plus, both athletes will have more time to rest between events at the state meet. Class C will compete Friday afternoon along with Class A in the second session of the opening day.
"They have a little more time between events at state than they're used to," Kester said. "At districts, we started the afternoon and Brent hadn't qualified in any events. Within 30 minutes he had competed in all four events."
Kester is hoping for another big showing from shot putter Kelly Zimmerman. The junior set a personal best of 51 feet, 6 1-2 inches to win the district meet last week.
"It wasn't that big of a surprise for me because I was expecting Kelly to put things together," Kester said. "I hope what he was able to do at districts carries over to state."
Kester was also thrilled to see senior Sam Bolton qualify for state in the triple jump. His 43-1 3-4 performance at the district meet puts him in the top six heading into the state meet.
"He qualified for state as a sophomore and then had ACL surgery," Kester said. "To come back and compete like he did at districts and jump well enough to not only qualify be be one of the top qualifiers, I'm really happy for Sam."
GICC's Alicia Statler had the fourth best shot put throw in districts at 39-11.
"What was nice at districts is Alicia had a whole series of throws all in the 39-0 to 39-11 range," Kester said. "That's her best series all year. Alicia has become a much better competitor the last month of the season."
Kester said the girls 400 relay team of Fredrickson, Liz McGowan, Drew Kime and Jillian Moravec has been on the state charts all season. The boys 1,600 relay team of Brian Golka, Chad Pfeifer and Dylan Redman and Aaron Soto bettered its best time this season by more than six seconds at the district meet.
"There isn't any reason not to expect that time to come down more at state," Kester said. "We definitely have good expectations for our boys at the state meet. Hopefully we can bring back a number of medals.”
