56°F
weather icon Partly Cloudy

Beatty track athlete going to Junior Olympics

Beatty long distance runner Jose Granados has made the cut for the USA Track and Field Junior Olympics and will be traveling to Lawrence, Kansas this year.

The 51st USATF Hershey National Junior Olympic Track and Field Championships will be held at Rock Chalk Park, the home of Kansas Track and Field, in Lawrence. The championship organizers are expecting 10,000 athletes to travel to this event.

Granados was a freshman athlete this year, participating in two sports, basketball and track. He impressed his track coach, Ellice Dunsterville, this year with outstanding times.

“Jose (Granados) is pushing himself to break records at state,” the coach said after the regional meet.

Although he didn’t break any state records at state, he went to the Nevada Class 1 A State Track and Field finals in May of this year and ran in two events, the 1,600-meter run and the 3,200, finishing second (4 minutes, 47.70 seconds) in the 1,600 and third (10:31.32) in the 3,200.

He said his goal is to win state and to get a college track scholarship, which means he has to work harder.

To do that he has dedicated his summer to working on track and has taken on an ambitious summer program.

“I am doing a track club in Las Vegas to train hard and beat the Northern athletes,” he said. “I run anywhere from three to five days a week. I am really happy doing this. It’s a great opportunity and will help me get scholarships.”

The club Granados is training with is at Cimarron Memorial High School in Las Vegas. He had been wanting to go to the Junior Olympics since seventh grade.

“I had heard about the Junior Olympics when I was starting to run in seventh grade,” he said. “My coach had said my times were good enough to run in and he said he hoped one day I would run in them.”

Granados will be running in the 800 and the 1,600 at the Junior Olympics and will be fundraising in town.

“As of now, I will be putting up a couple of donation buckets in Amargosa,” he said.

Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtime.com

Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook.
THE LATEST
SOFTBALL: Trojans top Moapa, fall to Needles

The Trojans softball team suffered their first loss this season against a school from a neighboring state on Monday, but it also added a win in a weekend game against Moapa Valley (2-1) at home.

Muckers baseball off to 1-3 start this season

By the end of the weekend, the Tonopah Muckers had played four games, where they scored over 17 runs.

Muckers start softball season 1-3

Tonopah softball started their season over the weekend with four games on Friday and Saturday.

RODEO 2024: Here are the winners

The Nevada State High School Rodeo was in Pahrump last weekend where junior and senior high school students from around the state came to compete after their winter break.

Trojans girls basketball moves on to the quarterfinals

After Avery Moore stole a pass from the Sports Leadership and Management (SLAM) girls basketball team she passed the ball to Paris Coleman who ran up and scored the team’s fourth two-pointer in less than two minutes.

Pastor opens boxing gym for Pahrump youth

Pastor Ruben Bajo, of Full Armor of God Ministries in Pahrump told the Pahrump Valley Times that decades ago the sport of boxing saved his life and kept him off the streets of Los Angeles.

Trojans struggle in nail-biting 4th quarter against Chaparral

It was all up to No. 14 Daxton Palmisano from the Pahrump Valley boys basketball team with less than 10 seconds on the clock to score a three-pointer to get the Trojans into overtime in a hard-fought game on Wednesday.

Trojans boys basketball on 3-game winning streak

Three wins in one week from the Pahrump Valley boys basketball team last week after they won at home against the Pinecrest Academy Sloan Canyon in a tight match that ended 59-57.