As a freshman for Hillcrest Owen Scott was able to make it to the big stage of the track and field season, the Iowa High School Track and Field Championships in Des Moines. Qualifying for the Boys 1A long jump event Scott arrived at Drake Stadium’s Blue Oval to compete with the best of the best on May 18. 

“I think it’s wonderful that he made it his freshman year,” Hillcrest track and field coach Martin Gingerich said about Owen competing in the State long jump event. “He’s very composed, he’s very coachable as well and he takes instruction well.” 

The state meet is a three day event, from Thursday to Saturday, and Scott was competing on day one at 9:00 am in one of the first events to kick off the state meet. The long jump would be separated into two flights, with 12 people jumping in each flight. Scott participated in the first flight. 

Each jumper would be allowed three preliminary jumps and the eight people with the farthest jumps would advance to the finals and be allowed an additional three jumps.

Scott would start the event with a jump of 18’-09.25” and he would follow that with his second jump being recorded at 19’-11.25”. His third and final jump would be his best of the day, being measured at 20’-00.75”, a new personal record for Scott. 

With Scott being in the first flight he had to wait and observe the second flight to see if he made it to the finals. 

He had an outside shot of qualifying but it was not meant to be and Scott finished the event in 11th place. Coming in first place in this event was Winfield-Mount Union’s Cam Buffinton with a jump of 21’-08.00”. 

An 11th place finish as a freshman is a remarkable accomplishment and he was the highest placing freshman in this 1A long jump event . Going into this state meet Scott was seeded 16th out of 24 and with his 11th place finish he was able to outperform, or out jump, his seeding. 

Once the event was over the importance of competing at this state level in his first year participating in track and field was not lost on him. 

“It’s way bigger than just a normal track meet, I really like the energy,” Scott said about his experience competing at State. “I think I did really good, for everything being exact I think I did pretty good.” 

It was a busy spring sports season for Scott, in addition to being on the track and field team he was also a starter on the Hillcrest soccer team. Just three days prior to competing at Drake Stadium he was playing in a playoff soccer game. 

A multi-sport athlete as a freshman who made it to State and ended the soccer season tied as the second leading scorer on the team is all one needs to say to show how special of an athlete Scott is. 

“He’s been involved in a number of different things this spring, long jump, high jump, running events and soccer so just to at least come through at one of them at state level is wonderful,” Gingerich said about Scott after the event wrapped up, “He did quite well today. He keeps on improving and it will be good to see how he does in the future.” 

The 2023 track and field season finally comes to a close and only time will tell if Scott will be able to make it back to the state meet next year but when asked if he could see himself in Des Moines next year he had a simple answer, “Yeah, definitely.”