TRACK AND FIELD: Howard County Meet

Kokomo Tribune - Thursday, May 12, 2022

Western beat Northwestern by a margin of 20-25 points to win the meet. Host Eastern was third and Taylor was fourth. Final team scores and event marks were not available.

Western won eight events. Chase Hayes won the 100, 200 and 400 dashes. Lacy Rathbun won the 100 hurdles and the 300 hurdles. Maddy Parr won pole vault and teamed with Lainey Scott, Kourtney Lechner and Kayleigh Turner to win the 4x400. And the team of Avery Shock, Lauren Bradley, Hattie Harlow and Maddy Shoaff won the 4x800.

"We had great balance," Western coach Gary Jewell said. "We scored multiple times in most of the events. I think the two highlights that really stand out to me were Chase Hayes winning the three sprint events - she got the high-point award - and then we did really well in pole vault. I think we got first, then two girls [Scott and Bree Smith] tied for third. We outscored Northwestern 11-0 in pole vault.

"We didn't necessarily dominate events, but we scored well, which was nice. I think we probably surprised some people because we lost to Northwestern twice earlier this season, but we've had some injuries we had to deal with, and [Wednesday] night after some recovery time, we looked really good. They performed really well. They stepped up."

Hannah Moore led Northwestern with a sweep of the 800 and 1,600 runs. The Tigers also had wins from Anna Bishir in the long jump, Lexi Hale in the high jump, Courtney Adams in the 3,200 run and Mayli Yoder, Iris Brehm, Bishir and Anna Perry in the 4x100 relay.

"It's tough to have two meets in three days," Northwestern coach Josh Perry said. "We had a big showing on Monday [in the Hoosier Conference meet] so the turnaround was tough. The girls gave it everything again and are ready for sectionals.

"Anna Perry had a great day with some of her best times in the 100 and 200. She also anchored the 4x4 to a 10-second season best. Courtney Adams and Hannah Moore put on another distance sweep in the 1,600, 800 and 3,200. We are really going to depend on all three of them next week [in the sectional]."

Eastern was led by its throwers. Elisabeth Bruno won discus and was runner-up in shot put and Jacey Richmond won shot and took fourth in discus.

Other highlights for the Comets included Ava Kantz taking second in the 1,600 run (5:57) and third in the 3,200 (13:11), Hannah Morrisett taking second in pole vault and Alesia Rummel and Lilly Shallenberger finishing 2-3 in the 400 dash.

"I can't say enough about our throwers leading the team in scoring. Very proud of those girls coming through meet after meet. Our times in events are coming down, just in time for sectional," Eastern coach Anne Kantz said.

Northwestern scored 102 points to win the county meet at Eastern. Western was second with 86, Eastern third with 49 and Taylor fourth with seven.

Northwestern was led by triple winner A'Marion Conyers. The Tigers swept the relays. Jacob Bumgardner, Isiaha Kanable, Caden Lechner and Colin Feazel won the 4x800. Tyler Lake, Michael Groves, Eric Binder and Conyers won the 4x100. And Matthan McGriff, Feazel, Caden Gaier and Conyers won the 4x400.

Individually, Gaier won the 110 high hurdles, Ethan Haynes won shot put, Conyers won high jump, Feazel was first in the 800 run and McGriff won the 400 dash.

"Outstanding job from the boys," Northwestern coach Alex Pier said. "To show up after a hard conference meet on Monday and put down excellent performances is amazing. I am so proud of the execution and drive displayed. Showing up and down the roster [Wednesday] helped really push the team forward. They did this together as a team."

Western won four events. Evan Kretz won the discus, Pete Bradshaw won the 1,600, Taylor Rathbun won the 300 hurdles, and the Panthers went 1-2-3 in pole vault. Brady Parks cleared 11-6 for first place in the pole vault, Milan Bennett was second at 9-6, and Camden Oyler third, also at 9-6.

"One of the big highlights that happened for us was our high jumper Dylan Collins," Jewell said. "He high jumped 6-4 [for second place].

"We're getting better. We have a lot of guys who are new to this that are older, so they're getting better little by little every week. I don't think anybody thought we were going to be as close to Northwestern as we were. I think right now Northwestern is still in the driver's seat for next week at the sectional."

Triple winner Jayden Eagle led Eastern. He sprinted to wins in the 100 dash (:11.25) and 200 dash (:23.52) and also won the long jump (20-6.75). He was the meet's high points winner. Also for the Comets, Obi Greene won the 3,200 run (11:16.56).

"I couldn't be prouder of these guys," Eastern coach Blake Donson said. "They came out and ran some great times, lots of PRs."