Kee boys track seniors Tyson Cota and Damon Weber end careers with improvement among 2022 Class 1A State Meet field event elite
Near top half of 1A long jump elite... Kee boys track senior Tyson Cota takes flight in his return in the long jump to the Class 1A State Track and Field Meet at Drake Stadium in Des Moines Thursday, May 19. Cota soared to a 14th-place finish in that Class 1A field of 24 jumpers with a leap of 19’11.25”. Photo courtesy of Nate Troy, Cresco Times-Plain Dealer.
For the second consecutive season, the Kee boys track and field team was represented where all high school track and field athletes strive to be, as the senior pair of Tyson Cota and Damon Weber each made return trips to the Class 1A State Track and Field Meet at Drake Stadium in Des Moines. With both earning returns in the same events they competed in last spring, the pair of senior leaders both improved on their 2021 showings within yet another strong field of Class 1A elite competitors in their respective field events.
Both Cota and Weber competed on the first day of action at the season grand finale, Thursday, May 19, with Cota kicking things off with one of the first events of the entire final weekend in the long jump. Needing to finish with a jump in the preliminary rounds that would land him among the top eight to earn advancement to the finals of the 24-jumper event, Cota came up about a foot shy of that ultimate elite bunch, the final spot of which was claimed by a leap of 20’10.5”.
Cota’s three preliminary flight jumps included efforts of 18’4.25”, his best 19’11.25”, and a final 19’11” effort, that second effort leaving him in 14th place overall, one place higher and about eight inches farther than his 2021 finish of 15th with a 19’3.5” leap. Lisbon senior Kole Becker, an Iowa State University track and field commit and four-event medal winner at this year’s State Meet, won the Class 1A long jump with a leap of 23’2.25”, just a quarter-inch off the Class 1A State Meet record.
Later that same morning, Weber took to his field event, also coming away with a bit better result than his previous year. Also needing a top-eight preliminary effort to advance to the finals, Weber was about eight feet shy of that final upper echelon qualifying mark that ended up at 48’11.5” in this year’s 24-thrower field for Class 1A.
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