For the second week in a row, the McDonald County High School boys' and girls' track teams attended a meet with state-caliber competition.
At the 29th Annual Jocks Nitch/Gorilla Relays in Pittsburg, Kan., a pair of personal bests in the boys' field events and a girls' relay kept McDonald County from going scoreless.
Leading the way for the boys was junior Zach Woods. Woods tied his personal best by clearing 13-0 in the pole vault to take third place. Harrison Huhn of Carl Junction won the event with a vault of 14-0.
Also scoring for the Mustangs was sophomore Michael Williams. Williams took fourth place in the long jump with a leap of 20 feet, 10.5 inches, which was within nine inches of the winning jump of 21-7 by Harley Stone of Mound City-Jayhawk Linn.
Other top boys' efforts included Huechi Xiong, 12th, pole vault, 12-0; John Howard, 21st, 400, 54:51; Corbin Jones, 29th, 100, 11:58; Cale Adamson, 29th, 400, 55:59; Alex Guadarrama, 32nd, 1600, 4:58.74; David Lazalde, 17th, 2000 meter steeplechase, 7:40.47 and 24th, 3200, 10:45.81; and Elijah Habert, Garrett Spears, Adamson and Guadarrama, 10th, 4x800 relay, 8:58.94.
Woods' and Williams' efforts gave McDonald County 11 points, which tied for 18th out of 34 teams. Carthage won the boys' title with 94 points.
The girls' 4x800 relay of Ragan Wilson, Adyson Sanny, Cassadi Dowd and Addy Mick took seventh with a time of 11:11.54 to lead the girls' results.
Other top girls' results included Rita Santillan, 23rd, 100, 13:59; Wilson, 17th, 800, 2:34.95; Dowd, 21st, 800, 2:37.73; Ruby Palomo, 13th, 100 hurdles, 17:55 and 28th, 300 hurdles, 53:98; Chloe Teague and Caitlyn Barton, tie 16th, pole vault, 8-0; Jordan Witt, 18th, triple jump, 30-7; and Jackie Grider, 20th, shot put, 29-9.5 and 17th, javelin, 94-8.
McDonald County's two points for the seventh place relay was good enough for 32nd place out of 35 teams. Raymore-Peculiar won the girls' team championship with 76 points.
McDonald County was at Cassville on April 17 before traveling to Monett for the Monett Relays on April 24.
East Newton
With the big meet on Friday, several junior varsity members of the track team competed against varsity teams at the Patriot Invitational on April 12 at East Newton High School.
McDonald County's best result was a third place by Joel Morris in the 300 hurdles in a time of 45.6.
Other members of the boys' team to score were Parker Harris, fifth, 800, 2:22.0 and Dylan Allison, fifth, triple jump, 36-5.
Leading the girls' results was Sammi Dowd, who took sixth in the pole vault by clearing 6-6.
Sports on 04/19/2018