Middle school boys finish fourth at home meet

Both the Fairfield Middle School seventh-grade boys and the eighth-grade team finished fourth in the team standings Tuesday at their home Fairfield Relays.

Fairfield?s eighth-graders scored 85.5 points to fall behind champion Mount Pleasant (142), Ottumwa (119) and Washington (115.5). The seventh-graders tallied 84 points to trail champion Mount Pleasant (147), Washington (101) and Keokuk (85).

The host eighth-graders made a big splash in the field events, where Michael Fritz won both the discus and shot put. Fritz topped the discus field with a throw of 143-feet, 10-inches, and he won the shot put at 39-feet, 11.25-inches. Cam Baumann was right behind Fritz in the discus and finished second at 139-feet, 4-inches, while classmate Chris Hanson finished third in the shot put with a far throw of 37-feet, 3.5-inches.

The Trojans also racked up a chunk of points on the track, including a first-place finish from the distance medley team of Baumann, Denver Schultz, Brayden Miller and Eric Swan (4:24). Austin Winslow, Navin Martin, James Bechtel and Elijah Parr finished third in the 4x800 (10:38); and the 4x200 team of Walker Allen, Schultz, Baumann and Miller was third (1:49). Fritz, Schultz, Baumann and Allen also tacked on a bronze-medal finish in the sprint medley (1:56).

For the seventh-graders, Steeler Higdon led the way with a win in the shot put (32? 11?) and runner-up finish in the discus (90? 6?). Max Sullivan anchored the distance medley team to a win in 4:40. Others on the winning relay included Blu Schultz, Hunter Drish and Dakota Storto.

Sullivan also finished runner-up in the open-800 in 2:35. Darren Roberts, Connor Ryan, Stetson Spees and Aaron Haines claimed second place in the 4x800 (11:01); as did Hunter Hoskins, Schultz, Storto and Higdon in the sprint medley (2:03).

Third-place finishes came from James Lyman in the 100-meter hurdles (17.97); and Graham Kuehl, Roberts, Hoskins and Haines in the 4x400 (4:48).

Next up for the FMS boys is the conference meet scheduled Friday in Mount Pleasant.