Five athletes on the Torrington High School indoor track team clinched state titles in Gillette over the weekend – Harper Boche in the shot put and Alyssa Wondercheck, Natalie Hawes, Brooklyn Asmus and Trishell Pontarolo in the 4x200-meter relay.
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GILLETTE – The 2024 state indoor track and field championships in Gillette got off to a bit of a rough start for Southeast High School senior and shot putter Harper Boche on March 2.
In the preliminary rounds, Boche fouled on her first two throws.
Unfazed, the talented and seasoned senior hit her mark on the third throw, propelling Boch into the shot-put finals with eight other athletes.
Boche and her competitors each stepped into the ring for the finals. Boche prepared for her spin – a new technique she picked up to replace the glide.
“I switched over this year to the spin,” Boche said. “I started learning it this summer and it was fun to grow those skills.”
The spin involves sprinting across the ring and putting power behind the shot put to make the object “fly faster for longer,” Boche explained.
Boche executed her spin perfectly and launched the shot put 38 feet, 2 inches beyond the throwing ring, hitting her mark with inches to spare. As the other finalists completed their throws in the finals, Boche realized her first mark had hit paydirt.
“I had my winning mark on my first throw in the finals,” Boche said. “That lowered the pressure for me. It only takes one throw.”
Boche’s toss landed nearly one foot beyond the mark hit by the runner-up, Green River’s Lillian Allison, at 37-02 ¼.
In a single toss, Boche snagged the indoor track state championship – her second state title – and garnered All-State honors in the process. Boche’s throw the previous year set the 3A state indoor track shot put record.
Boche dedicates innumerable hours to honing her shot-out technique. The senior competes in both indoor and outdoor track and spends the offseason attending throwing camps, lifting weights and practicing in the mornings.
“I put so much time into it,” Boche said. “When I was younger, my mom would take me to the track on Sundays and sit out there and watch me throw.”
From humble beginnings with the shot put in middle school, Boche continued to improve in the sport.
“I’ve fallen in love with the shot put ever since,” Boche added. “Knowing I can grow and improve my throwing skills drives me to do better. That and the determination to stick with it.”
Earlier in the season, Boche made the podium at the Simplot Games with a fourth-place finish in a competitive field consisting of the best athletes from across the United States, Canada and Australia.
A highlight of the meet was advancing to the finals with other shot-put athletes from Wyoming, a particularly tight-knit group.
“The throwing community is the best,” Boche said. “We all just want to have fun and support each other.”
Boche’s goals in outdoor track this spring are to “place well at state” and “developing my spin and tweaking it every week to improve.”
Boche thanked her track coaches at both Southeast and Torrington high schools for their support. She also gave a shoutout to Kathy Hammersmith – “she has been the light for me.”
A record-breaking relay team
The Torrington High School indoor track girls’ 4x200-meter relay team broke its own personal record, and the THS school record, each week over the course of the 2024 season. The state championships were no exception.
Senior Alyssa Wondercheck and sophomores Brooklyn Asmus, Natalie Hawes and Trishell Pontarolo snagged gold at state in the relay, posting a new personal and school record of 1 minute, 46.60 seconds.
The team also set a new 3A state record in the process, a fact the four athletes learned after crossing the finish line nearly four seconds ahead of the rest of the competition.
“We ran our hearts out,” Pontarolo said. “We weren’t too worried about our time. We were just worried about running the relay as hard as we could and putting our all into it.”
The four runners “got out really strong” and maintained a breakneck speed for each leg, Asmus added.
“We’re all pretty strong runners,” Asmus said. “Everybody runs good splits. We kind of knew going into state that we had a pretty good shot at winning. But we didn’t know that we had broken the state record until we were on the podium. It was exciting.”
The 4x200 team only formed this year, but the team chemistry clicked right away.
“We’re all pretty adamant about going ouhard,” Asmus said. “We all wanted the same thing, so that made it pretty easy to work together.”
The athletes had to “beg” the coaching staff to let them try the 4x200-relay, Asmus added.
“Normally, we would be put in more open events to score more points,” Asmus noted. “But we knew we would do something good with the 4x200, so we were really on the coaches about letting us run it. We had no idea we would break any records, though.”
Hawes kicks off the relay each week by running the first leg, Pontarolo explained.
“Natalie is our starter because she’s the best at blocks,” Pontarolo added. “She hands the baton off to me. I try to get us either out in front or even with the other girls we’re racing against. I hand off to Alyssa Wondercheck. She usually gets us into first place and then gives it to Brooklyn and Brooklyn keeps us in first place – she is a really good anchor.”
As the relay team’s lone senior, Wondercheck took the sophomores on the squad under her wing.
“Alyssa made the relay fun,” Asmus said. “She brings a lot to the team, for sure.”
The team thanked their previous indoor and outdoor track coach, Mark Sims, and the current head coach, Russell Stienmetz, along with the jumping coach, Jeff Logsdon.
