Rachael Baumgartner

Continually progress across the season is always a goal of track athletes and Nemaha Valley sophomore, Rachael Baumgartner has done that posting her best times and marks in the 100 and 300 meter hurdles and pole vault this past week, while winning all three events in two different meets.

Baumgartner had put together a strong track season going into last week winning a majority of time she was in competition this season in her three main events, but her season continued to get better with the six first place finishes last week.

The week started off for the sophomore at her home track as she notched the three of the Raiders four first place finishes on the day at the Nemaha Valley Invitational. Rachael on top of claiming first in the 100 and 300 meter hurdles and pole vault posted her best marks of the year. In the hurdles she raced to times of 16.15 and 48.43, respectively, while vaulting to a height of 9’06.

Later in the week Baumgartner and the Raiders competed at the Sabetha Invitational and Rachael again put together another strong showing adding three more gold medals to here count this year bring that total to 14. She won the 100 meter hurdles with a time of 16.48 and took the pole vault with a leap of 9’00, set a new best in the 300 meter hurdles for the year with a time of 48.33 to claim the win.

All season Rachael has been at the top in all three events never finishing below third place in any of the three competitions and looks to continue that momentum as the track regular season starts to come to a close and postseason sprouts up. Baumgartner has her sights set on returning to start State where she competed in the 300 meter hurdles last year, but this year she has her mindset set on competing in more than just one event at State.