Hanley wins gold for Alberton Track at state
ALBERTON – Delani Hanley cruised her way to a state title winning the discus event for the Alberton Track team at Great Falls.
After spending much of the season as the leading girl for discus among the Class C schools, she was the player to beat going in to state. She finished the last two regular season discus events in first place.
Hanley finished first overall during the May 30-31 tournament with a throwing distance of 119-3.
Hanley departed Alberton at first in the top ten season standings for all Class C girls averaging a distance of 122-4.
Senior Ryan Vicek was close to winning girls state javelin, but had a second place finish and distance of 121-9.
Vicek finished fourth in the top ten regular season standings with a throwing distance of 121-1.
The girls finished tenth with 18 points during the meet at Great Falls Memorial Stadium.
None of the boy’s players were able to win any events.
In team scoring, the boys finished twenty-first with eight points out of 17 events scored.
Keir Sanzano finished seventeenth in the 100-meter dash preliminaries with a time of 11.90 seconds, which wasn’t enough to move on to the second day finals event.
Sanzano also competed in the 400-meter dash event placing eleventh with a final time of 53.54 seconds.
Among season rankings, Sanzano was sixth in the 300-meter dash among other Class C competitors averaging 42.01 seconds. His 400-meter dash average of 52.03 seconds was also good for sixth place among the conference.
Sanzano finished eleventh in the state discus throw, 115-8. In season competition, Sanzano was sixth in discus, just below fellow track athlete Andrew Lommen with an average distance of 138-8.
In shot put, he enjoyed a successful season in competition, but was only able to maintain an eight place average. He typically threw the ball for a distance of 46-1.
Lommen finished 11th in shot put with a 43-10 3/4, and finished second in discus, with a distance of 144.
Lommen was especially strong to during the regular season placing at least first or second in both shot put and discus.
His season standings put him in the top five for any competing school in the Class C conference for both shot put and discus.
In shot put, he was third in the season standings with an overall throwing distance of 49-9 1/2. Lommen also carried a third place average in discus with a throw of 149-4.
Even though Alberton Track only technically had one winning player at state, the effort was second to none.
Hanley is forever etched in the record book for her discus performance in district. Her distance of 118-11 was good enough to top the previous record holder by Sandy Delo of Seeley-Swan in 1989.
After the regular track season meets, 12 players qualified for divisionals in which coach Rachael Clevenger called the highest amount of qualifiers in a longtime.
Seniors Hanley, Vicek, Lommen and Sanzano headlined the state competition this year with exceptional play for Alberton. Each finishes their track careers with many personnel bests and topped the standings.