Wildcats rack up points at home invitational

By Andy Brown
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Updated: April 27, 2015

Louisburg’s Parker Cates clears a height in the pole vault Thursday during the Louisburg Invitational. The Wildcat boys team finished second overall with 151 points.

In front of his home fans, Sean Dennis showed a lot of people what his team already knew – he is pretty fast.

The Louisburg senior sped his way to top honors in the 100-meter dash with a personal best time and also won the 200 dash Thursday at the Louisburg Invitational. He also anchored the 4×100-meter relay to a gold medal and nearly won his fourth event, but took second in the 110-meter hurdles.

His success helped pave the way for the Wildcat track and field team as they finished second in the team standings with 151 points. Spring Hill won the title with 170 points.

Dennis’ most competitive race was the hurdles as he went up against Osawatomie’s Jacoby Greenwood. Both hurdlers have two of the top times in Class 4A this season and the race didn’t disappoint.

Although Dennis finished second, he still recorded a personal best time of 14.83 seconds to Greenwood’s 14.47, and will get his fair share of rematches with him down the road.

“Sean had a great day,” Louisburg coach Gary Griffin said. “In the hurdles, he is one of the tops in the state and he and Greenwood are going to have to compete several more times this year. They bring out the best in each other.

“The goal for a sprinter is to run sub 11 seconds in the 100 and he did that, and under 23 in the 200 and he has a chance to do that.”

Dennis finished with a personal-best time in the 100-meter dash in 10.89 seconds and won the 200 in 23.4 seconds. In practice, and in the meets, Dennis has been pushed by senior Mason Wilde who finished third in the 100 dash (11.46) and second in the 200 (23.9).

“Mason and Sean work really hard in practice and compete with each other and the other sprinters feed off of them, so the entire group is showing improvement,” Griffin said.

Jarod Woodward rears back for a throw in the shot put Thursday during the Louisburg Invitational. Woodward was second with a throw of 47 feet.

Wilde and Dennis, along with Ben Minster and Kyle Green, ran a time of 45.3 seconds to win the 4×100, but the Wildcats weren’t done winning. Green ran a strong 400-meter dash in 53.9 seconds to take the top spot.

Minster was fourth in the 200 dash (24.3) and sixth in the 100 (11.66), while Dawson Christy was sixth in the 400 (56.4). Also on track, Ben Hupp came in sixth in the 300 hurdles (47.47).

The 4×400-meter relay of Wilde, Green, Christy and Wyatt Reece came in runner-up to Osawatomie in 3:40, while the 4×800 relay of Hupp, Reece, Christy and Michael Minster also took second in 9:16.

In the field events, senior Connor McMullen won two events for the first time this season as he picked a good time for his best throw in the shot put. McMullen recorded a toss of 48 feet, 7 inches, which is a personal record, to win the shot and later threw 148-6 to win the discus.

Not to be outdone, teammate Jarod Woodward also hit a personal record throw of 47 feet in the shot to finish second.

“Connor’s shot was something that I knew he could do and I hope he continues to build on that,” Griffin said. “I think he is definitely capable of throwing 50 feet. Jarod also made a nice jump and I think he is also capable of throwing 50 feet.”

Also in the throws, freshman Garrett Lowry had a throw of 113-10 in the discus to take third. Jacob Jensen (127-10) and Dustyn Rizzo (115-4) took fourth and sixth, respectively, in the javelin.

Parker Cates led Louisburg in the pole vault as the Wildcats placed four. Cates cleared 10-6 to take third and Frankie Hurst did the same, but was fourth based on number of misses. Christian Scholtz (10-0) and Lyndon Smith (9-6) came in fifth and sixth in the event.

Andrew Goff was fourth in the long jump with a leap of 17-9, and his teammates Will Ridley (17-0) and Cates (16-11), were fifth and sixth. Goff was also fourth in the triple jump with a mark of 36-8 and Kyle Allen was sixth at 33-11.

“We scored some nice points in the pole vault and got some points in the javelin as well,” Griffin said. “We had a lot of PRs again and we are progressing each week and that is the goal.”