In her first provincial track and field championship as a shot-putter last year, R.D. Parker Collegiate's Deandra Howard finished as the runner-up after faulting on her final attempt, but there was no sophomore slump for the Trojan athlete as she outdistanced her nearest competitor by more than half a metre to win the girls' junior varsity shot put championship at the MILK track and field provincials in Selkirk June 7-9.
Howard's best attempt travelled 9.61 metres, easily giving her the gold over runner-up Darcie Stankowski of Arborg, who managed to put it 9.04 metres. The two were the only to exceed nine metres, as bronze medallist Steph Hosman of Erickson got a distance of 8.78 on her best attempt.
Ironically, Howard didn't even match last year's performance, which went a distance of 9.68 metres, but fell 14 centimetres shy of champion Natasha Rupa of Shoal Lake Collegiate, who earned the title with a throw of 9.82 metres.
Howard's shot was 33 centimetres shy of the provincial record of 9.94 metres, set by Kristi-Lyn Pollock of Virden Collegiate in 2006.
The Grade 10 student was first overall in qualifying with a distance of 9.26 metres, 15 centimetres longer than Hosman's 9.11 metres and one of only two attempts to surpass the nine-metre mark.
RDPC's next-best results at provincials were a trio of sixth-place finishes, one by Vatineh Magaji in the junior varsity girls' 80-metre hurdles, the others in the junior varsity girls' 4x400 metre relay and the varsity boys' 4x100 metre relay.
Other top-10 finishes included seventh places by Marlon Garrioch in the varsity boys' long jump and Avery Darechuk in the varsity boys' discus throw, eighth places by Janaye Tucker-Titanich in the varsity girls' high jump and the 800 metre run portion of the varsity girls' tetrathlon, a ninth place by Garrioch in the 800 metre portion of the junior varsity boys' tetrathlon, and a 10th place in the varsity boys' distance medley.
