High school track: DQ costs Riverton team title

TAYLORSVILLE — Nothing, it seemed, could stop Aubrie Haymore. The Riverton sprinter made it look easy while claiming first-place finishes in the 100, 200 and 400 that had the Silverwolves staring at a big victory in the UHSTCA Invitational.

In an instant, those victories were wiped away. Haymore was disqualified and it cost Riverton a team title on Saturday at Taylorsville High.

She was stripped of her three first-place finishes after meet officials discovered Haymore competed in five events — the 100, 200, 400, 4x100 relay and long jump. Individual athletes are allowed to compete in four events, which meant automatic disqualifications for Haymore.

It also meant a staggering loss of team points for Riverton, which caused the Silverwolves to drop to second place behind Davis.

"It's partly my bad for not paying attention to how many events she was doing," Riverton coach Jake Garlick said. "Usually, we're used to her running events and we ended up putting her in the long jump just to see how she would do. I guess we just didn't coordinate it as far as realizing that she did five events."

The error stemmed from a misunderstanding of the wording on the event details page for the Invitational at runnercard.com. At the top of the page, it stated that "each team is allowed unlimited number of entries in the meet" in one bullet point and "each athlete is allowed to sign up in unlimited events" in another bullet point.

But official USA track rules allow athletes to compete in only four events in any given meet — regardless of how many they sign up for.

With the disqualifications, Viewmont's Bailee Whitworth officially won the 100, Evantson, Wyo., runner Erin Kirby placed first in the 200 and Syracuse's Lindsay MacFarland was the winner in the 400.

The whole episode tarnished what was an otherwise banner day for Riverton.

Matt Maughan turned in a strong overall performance for the Silverwolves. He won 110 hurdles with a time of 15.77 seconds to kick off the day. Maughan followed with a victory in the 100 meters, where he finished in 11.29 seconds — just a tenth ahead of Davis sprinter Ryan Avery — to prevail. He capped things off with a victory in the 200, after finishing in 22.96.

Maughan isn't satisfied with a victory in the hurdles. He is gunning for a state record too and is working to get his time under 15 seconds.