A large number of Perry student athletes, both boys and girls, competed against their own personal goals during the first PHS Lift-a-Thon Feb. 25.
The event was used as a fundraiser for weight room projects at PHS, chiefly to help cover the costs of the installing a full-floor mat, save for a center strip in which field turf will be placed.
Perry weight lifting coach Scott Pierce said he believed roughly $1200 had been raised by the students.
Each athlete performed a bench press, back squat and power clean (lift), with the total of the three exercises totaled.
Junior Tyler Soll became the lone Bluejay installed into the 1,000-pound club, after he produced a bench press of 275 pounds, a squat of 475 and a clean of 265 for a total of 1,015 pounds. Dalton Humpal nearly joined Soll, finishing at 965 to become the only member of the 900 club.
Trever Clark and Tony Le (both 825 pounds) and Eli Saemisch (805) claimed spots in the 800 club, with Jonathan Flores (785), Nic Fellom and Gabe Cubillo (both 745), Gisaveri Niyibizi (725), Adan Medina (720), Htwar Reh and Taviar Lucas (both 705) and Troy Jahnke (700) becoming members of the 700-pound club.
The 600 club has eight members, as Marcus Meri (685), Kiza Ndume (665), Preston Madriaga and Juan Campos (635), Jorge Casas (610), Justin Stammer (605) and Jehovany Rivera and Ian Velasco (600) reached that standard.
Two Jayette seniors — Taylor Lathrum and Haileigh Kenyon — are the initial members of the girls 400 club. Lathrum totaled 470 pounds and Kenyon 400.
Maddie West (390), Emma Olejniczak (320) and Selena Garcia (305) are the first members of the Jayette 300 club.
Many other Jays and Jayettes also took part in the event but are just beginning their time with the weights and did not reach the required weight amounts to enter one of the various club levels. Those reaching ‘club’ status lifted over 8-1/2 tons, or 17,195 total pounds.
