Wildcats win six events at Anderson County Invite

By Andy Brown
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Updated: April 19, 2017

Louisburg senior Jackson Ewalt runs a leg of the 4×100-meter relay during a meet earlier this season. The Wildcats won six events total Thursday during the Anderson County Invitational in Garnett. In the team standings, both the boys and girls finished fourth overall.

GARNETT – The Louisburg High School track and field teams ventured to the Anderson County Invitational on Thursday and left with several medals to show for their performance.

Both the boys and girls teams finished fourth in the team standings, while the Wildcats won six events total – four for the girls and two for the boys.

“I think overall this week was better than last week,” Louisburg boys coach Gary Griffin said. “The weather was good, and so a lot of the performances were better.”

Junior Kaitlyn Urban continues to find success in the triple jump as she won the event for the second consecutive week. Urban took first with leap of 31 feet, 9.25 inches and wasn’t the only Louisburg jumper to have success.

Isabelle Holtzen, a junior, won the pole vault competition after she cleared 9-6 and captured the gold medal by more than a foot.

“In the jumps it’s nice to see Kaitlyn and Isabelle having success,” Louisburg girls coach Greg Darrington said. “Both girls have worked hard in the off-season and are competing in the running events this year. The more speed they develop, the better they will be in the jumps.”

The jumpers carried their success over to the track as Urban and Holtzen teamed up with senior Kaitlyn Gaza and junior Mikayla Quinn to win the 4×400-meter relay in 4 minutes and 26.43 seconds as they edged out Eudora (4:26.55) at the finish line.

Quinn, Reilly Alexander, Shaylor Whitham and Payton Shaffer also took the top spot in the 4×800-meter relay as they finished first in 11:14. Urban, Sydni Keagle, Jordon Leach and Haley Cain took second in the 4×100 relay in 54.54 seconds.

“I was proud of all our relays and they did a good job,” Darrington said. “The fact that Mikayla and Kaitlyn are battling in the open 400 make the relay much better. I feel adding Isabelle in the open 400 helps as well. All of the girls are competitive and are pushing each other. If the can each cut four or five seconds of their splits they could have a chance to qualify for state and maybe even make finals.”

Quinn and Gaza battled for position in the 400-meter dash as Quinn took second in 1:05.55 and Gaza was right behind her in third in 1:05.75.

The Lady Cats also scored points in the hurdles as Keagle (19.46), Kristen Bell (19.98) and Cain (20.40) finished fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively, in the 100-meter hurdles. Cain also came in fourth (54.39) in the 300 hurdles.

In the field events, Lexie Reece and Melia Rice also scored points for Louisburg. Reece took fifth in the discus with a toss of 92-0 and Rice was sixth in the javelin with a throw of 72-6.

Wyatt Reece and Chris Williams came up big for the Wildcat boys as each won events.

Reece led the pack in the 3,200-meter run and finished in first place with a time of 10:59. Earlier in the day, Reece ran a season best time of 4:48 in the 1,600-meter run to finish second overall, while teammate Tim Smith returned to finish fourth in 5:00

As for Williams, he earned the 400-meter dash title in 52.54 seconds to win by more than a second. Blue Caplinger also scored points in the event with a sixth-place finish in 55.6 seconds.

“Wyatt had a good day in both of his races and he is starting to gain some confidence,” Griffin said. “Tim ran well in the 1,600 and then kind of hurt his foot again, so we will see what happens with him this week.”

Also on the track, Quinn Rigney finished runner-up in the 200-meter dash in 23.77 seconds and earlier took fourth in the 100 dash in 12.05.

The 4×100-meter relay of Jackson Ewalt, Caplinger, Austin Moore and Quinn Rigney ran a personal best of 45.98 seconds to finish fourth, while Ben Hupp, Tanner Belcher, Jarod Rose and Williams came in second in 8:49.74 in the 4×800 relay. The Wildcat 4×400 relay team finished sixth overall.

Belcher also scored points in the 800 run as he took fifth in 2:11, while Hupp was sixth in the 300 hurdles with a time of 45.16.

In the field events, senior T.J. Dover had a runner-up finish in the discus with a throw of 133-1 and later came in fourth in the shot put with a toss of 44-6.25.

Trent Martin and Frankie Hurst also had big days in the pole vault as both jumpers recorded personal records. Martin cleared 12-0.25 to take fourth and Hurst was seventh at 11-6.

Charlie Koontz also scored points for the Wildcats as he took fifth in the long jump with a leap of 18-1.5., and Kristopher Light cleared 5-5.5 in the high jump and finished sixth.

Louisburg returns to action this Thursday when it hosts the Louisburg Invitational at Wildcat Stadium.

Other results are:

GIRLS