BOYS TRACK: Western tops Kokomo in sectional after delay

Kokomo Tribune - Saturday, May 20, 2017

By Mark Saluke
Tribune sportswriters
 

The Kokomo Boys Track and Field Sectional got off to a hot and windy start on Thursday before lightning strikes forced the eventual delay of the action with half of the 16 events scored and Western holding the lead.

When events resumed on Friday, the weather had turned a rapid corner to cool and damp but the Panthers remained a constant.

Tyler Gilbert broke a sectional record with a monster discus toss, Josh Everetts dominated in distance runs and won three events, and Western overcame Kokomo speedster Andrecus Eddington's quadruple-win performance to take down the two-time defending champ Wildkats 141-112.5.

"It feels pretty good to beat them," Gilbert said. "They're always right there with us."

Gilbert let loose a discus throw that launched 177-01 feet on Thursday, breaking a sectional record of 176-06 set by Kokomo's Bobby Pettigrew in 1995. Gilbert's toss was nearly 40 feet ahead of his closest competition as Pioneer's Jack Kiser finished in second at 137-04.

"It felt pretty good when I was throwing it [Thursday]," Gilbert said. "I felt pretty comfortable. I came here the day before the event, just to get a feel, and it was going pretty good that day so I was pretty confident coming into it."

Everetts was well ahead of the competition in his distance events, especially the 3,200 on Friday, where he crossed in 10:11.86, more than :20 ahead of second-place Christian Dawson of Logansport.

On Thursday, Everetts helped Western open competition with a win as a leg of the 4x800 relay, joining Elijah Woodring, Nick Hackler and Andrew Granfield in a 8:31.90 victory. He then took first in the 1,600 in 4:42.87 before lightning halted the action.

"For me, either way I was confident, I was happy," Everetts said of going into the delay. "I felt strong, felt good. It was nice to get a little bit of sleep so that definitely helped."

Kokomo got its usual strong showing from Eddington, who claimed his third straight sectional title in the 100, racing to an 11.31 victory. Eddington also won the 200 in 23.07. In the 4x100 relay, Eddington turned on the jets to pass Western on the final leg for a 44.30 win with Shemar Robinson, Chris Thomas and Joseph Nieto. Eddington also joined with Thomas, Julian Wallace and Quincy Armstrong for a first-place win in the 4x400 (3:35.18).

Peru took third overall with a score of 88, paced by three wins from Jonah Lester in the 400 (51.22), long jump (20-11.25) and high jump (6-04). Torion'ja Forrest was first in the 300 hurdles for Peru (41.76).

Tipton finished fourth overall (48.75) and Logansport was fifth (48). Pioneer (44.25), Maconaquah (34), Cass (32), Eastern (21.5), Northwestern (18), Madison-Grant (14), Taylor (11) and Tri-Central (8) rounded out the team scoring. The top three individuals in each event advance to the Kokomo Regional on Thursday.

The Panthers last sectional title came in 2014, with Kokomo winning in 2015 and repeating last year. Everetts was a freshman on the Panthers 2014 squad.

"If you'd have said at the beginning of the season


File Photo | Kelly Lafferty Gerber
RECORD TOSS: Western's Tyler Gilbert begins a discus toss in the Kokomo Boys Track and Field Sectional on Thursday. Gilbert won the event with a throw of 177-01 to break a 1995 sectional record set by Kokomo's Bobby Pettigrew. Western beat the host Kats 141-112.5.

"It's nice to think my best team wasn't my freshman year," Everetts said. "We had an awesome team then, but now we've just grown so much, there's been a lot of camraderie with us and we were able to win the Hoosier Conference and now this."

Western dropped 21-time defending champ West Lafayette at the Hoosier Conference meet to grab momentum heading into sectionals.

that we were going to win a conference meet and a sectional, I think everybody would say we were crazy," Western coach Gary Jewell said. "We lost someone like Cameron Dessing last year. But this year we did it across the board. You have kids like Josh Everetts who can run any distance event, Mica Beard who advanced in four events to regional, Tyler Gilbert 18 points in two events, I think we scored in every event."

That was exactly what was need to topple Kokomo. The Panthers pulled a surprise with Zach Zentz taking first in the pole vault at 12-00. Gilbert also advanced in the shot put, finishing second (45-02.5) behind Kiser (49-07.25). Beard was third in the 100 (11.76), second in the 300 hurdles (42.12) and third in the long jump (20-07). Hackler was second in the 400 (52.27) and Jordan Hicks was third in the high jump (5-10). Western was also second in the 4x100 relay (Josh Coleman, Alex Newman, Mica Beard and Zhe'don Beard at 44.40) and the 4x400 (Hicks, Woodring, Hackler and Quaylen Calvin at 3:35.75).

"Western has a very good team, I knew they were going to be strong," Kokomo coach Tom Byrnes said. "They really rose to the competition. Like in the pole vault, they ended up getting first and that was 10 points we weren’t necessarily expecting. There were a couple areas where they just did that to us. Our kids ran well too but I think they just kind of rose a little bit more."

Also advancing individually to regionals for Kokomo were Nieto (2nd in the 200 at 23.55), Corey Dea (3rd in the 1,600 at 4:49.04 and 3rd in the 3,200 at 10:43.78), Armstrong (3rd in the 300 hurdles at 43.01), and Drake Blackburn (3rd in pole vault at 11-06). Kokomo's 4x800 relay team of Max Esponda, Justin Taflinger, Julian Wallace and Austin Coy Brandon) were 2nd in 8:38.27.

Other area individuals advancing to regional were Northwestern's Spencer Hutchins (3rd in the 800 at 2:05.95), Maconaquah's Tyler Dietzel (1st in the 800 at 2:03.13) and Eastern's Aren Turner (2nd in pole vault at 11-06).