Cooper, Combs win events at league meet

By Andy Brown
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Updated: May 13, 2015

Louisburg eighth-grader Brandon Cooper flies down the track in the 100-meter dash during a meet earlier this season. Cooper won the 100 dash Saturday at the Frontier League track meet in Gardner.

GARDNER – The Louisburg Middle School eighth-grade boys track and field team had hopes of bringing home a Frontier League championship Saturday in Gardner.

The Wildcats didn’t quite reach their goal as they finished third in the team standings, but they still captured two individual events. Brandon Cooper won the 100-meter dash and Ian Combs took home the pole vault title at Trail Ridge Middle School.

Louisburg finished with 92 team points in the nine-team meet. Spring Hill won the meet with 108 points and Baldwin was second with 94.

Combs tied his season best in the pole vault as he cleared 10 feet to win by six inches. Teammates Asah LaHue and Blue Caplinger also scored points in the event. LaHue was third as he cleared 9 feet, 6 inches and Caplinger was sixth at 9-0.

Cooper proved he was the fastest person in the Frontier League as he won the 100 dash in 12.07 seconds as he was one of several Wildcats to score points on the track.

Tanner Belcher gave the Wildcats a nice boost in the 3,200-meter run as he ran a time of 11 minutes and 28 seconds to finish runner-up and fellow teammate Dylan Knipp was sixth in 12:19.

Louisburg’s 4×100-meter relay team of Cooper, Eli Minster, Jon Ventre and Chris Williams were also runner-up with a time of 49.59 seconds.

Ventre continued to score points in three more events for the Wildcats. Ventre was third in the 400 dash in 56.37 and fourth in the 100 hurdles in 16.56. Noah Hill (17.51) and James Foote (18.1) were fifth and seventh, respectively, in the hurdles.

Williams later went on to finish fourth in the 200 dash in 26.1 seconds and Caplinger was seventh at 26.81. Caplinger wasn’t done scoring as he took fourth in the 800 run (2:26) and LaHue was fourth in the 1,600 run (5:20).

Belcher, Caplinger, Hill and Ventre helped take the Wildcat 4×400 relay to a fourth place finish in 4:12, while Brayden Gage, Gabe Rader, Williams and Knipp were fifth in the medley relay (1:57).

In the field events, LaHue scored in his fourth event of the day as he finished fourth in the shot put at 38-6.5. Kiefer Tucker was fifth in the discus with a throw of 117-9 and Jimmy Tucker was seventh at 113-10.

Kohl Vogel placed fifth in the high jump after he cleared 5-0 and Cooper was seventh at the same mark.

SEVENTH-GRADE BOYS

LMS seventh-grader Brayden White led the Wildcat track with the best finish of the day. White came in second in the shot put with a throw of 33-9.

As a team, the Wildcats finished ninth with 21 points. Spring Hill won the team crown with 89 points and Paola was second with 83.5.

Charlie Koontz scored points in three events for Louisburg. Koontz was fifth in the 100 dash in 13.34 seconds and later came in seventh in the 200 with a time of 28.24.

Also on the track, the 4×100 relay of Thomas Arnett, Will Frank, Koontz and Michael Waldron finished fourth in 53.56 seconds. The 4×200 relay of Anthony Davis, Trent Martin, Indy Strumillo and Drake Varns was seventh in 2:07.