Dennis wins four golds at league track

Louisburg senior Sean Dennis pulls away from the field in the 110-meter high hurdles Thursday at the Frontier League meet in Spring Hill. Dennis won four league titles on the day, including three individual races.

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SPRING HILL – Sean Dennis had one of the best days in his track career Thursday, and quite possibly one of the best performances in Louisburg track history as far as the Frontier League meet goes.

Dennis, a senior, won three individual gold medals during the league meet at Spring Hill High School as he dominated the track. He then picked up a fourth as he helped the 4×100-meter relay to a first-place finish.

It was the perfect setup for Dennis as he, and the rest of the Wildcats, prepare for the regional meet Thursday.

“Sean had a great day,” Louisburg coach Gary Griffin said. “He competed hard, he ran prelims in all of his sprints and ran well in all the finals. The times were not great because we ran against the wind, but the performance was excellent. I am not sure the last time we had someone win three individual golds and four total.”

Dennis won the 110-meter high hurdles in 16.41 seconds as he pulled away from the competition. He later won the 100-meter dash in 11.44 seconds and the 200-meter dash in 23.20, which was close to a personal best.

Mason Wilde, Kyle Green, Ben Minster and Dennis brought home another league title in the 4×100 relay as they ran to a gold medal in 44.1 seconds to edge Paola at the finish line.

“The 4×100 ran well,” Griffin said. “We still have a little work to do on handoffs, which I think can cut some more time off. They may have to run that fast to qualify for state.”

Senior Connor McMullen joined Dennis as a league champion after he recorded a throw of 175 feet, 3 inches to win the discus. He also scored points in two other events for Louisburg.

For the first time this season, McMullen competed in the javelin and all he did was come away with a third place finish. He finished with a throw of 154-8 to give the Wildcats some big team points.

In the shot put, McMullen came in fifth with a toss of 46-5. He would have finished fourth, but teammate Jarod Woodward surpassed McMullen by one inch on his final throw with a mark of 46-6.

“Connor had a great day scoring big points for us,” Griffin said. “I was happy he started throwing the javelin and he has a great chance to qualify for state in that event at regionals. He has been really consistent the last three weeks in the discus, which leads me to believe that he has a big one in him the next two weeks.”

In the team standings, the Wildcats finished fifth overall with 83 points. Baldwin won the league crown with 145 points and Paola was second with 108.

Also on the track, Green finished fifth in the 400-meter dash as he ran a time of 52.96. Green, Wilde, Quinn Rigney and Michael Minster ran a 3:42 in the 4×400 to take sixth.

In the 100-meter dash, Wilde and Ben Minster finished sixth and seventh, respectively, to also score points in the sprints.

The 4×800 relay of Wyatt Reece, Ben Hupp, Dawson Christy and Minster finished fifth in 9:22.

Junior Parker Cates, along with freshman Frankie Hurst, had a good day in the pole vault. Cates cleared 11-0 to take fifth overall. Hurst also cleared 11-0 to tie a personal best and took eighth.

Andrew Goff cleared 5-6 in the high jump to take sixth and rounded out the Wildcat point-getters.

Louisburg will now get ready to compete in its most important meet of the season Thursday as it travels to Prairie View for the Class 4A regional meet. The top four finishers in each event qualify for the state meet in Wichita.

“I think we have the chance to qualify a lot of kids in a lot of events, but they are going to have to perform well on Thursday,” Griffin said. “This is the highest pressure meet of the year. A lot of these kids have been in this situation before and have performed well, but for some of them it is a new experience and hopefully they can relax and perform well.”