Highland finishes third at SEISC North Division track meet

The Highland boys? track and field team took third place at the Southeast Iowa Super Conference North Division meet on Monday evening.

Mediapolis won the North Division title with 156 points, and Pekin was second with 131 points. The Huskies, who had won the team title at their home meet a week before, finished third with 86 points despite not winning a single event.

Sophomore Evan Mahler took second place in the 3,200-meter run in 10:17.25, and freshman Keiffer Sexton was fourth in 11:12.65. Mahler also finished third in the 1,600-meter run in 4:53.72, and senior Matt Eden was eighth in 5:13.75. Senior Zach Popham took second place in the 800-meter run in 2:02.32, and senior Brad Lampe was seventh in 2:13.22.

Senior Talon McFarland took third place in the 200-meter dash in 23.38 seconds, and senior Derrick Stewart finished fifth in the 100-meter dash in 11.73 seconds. Junior Jesse Hootman came in seventh in the 100-meter hurdles in 17.12 seconds, and junior Austin McCarthy was eighth in the 400-meter hurdles in 1:03.51.

McFarland cleared 5 feet, 10 inches to place fourth in the high jump competition, and Hootman finished sixth in the long jump competition with a leap of 18 feet, 2 inches. Sophomore Jake Yeggy?s throw of 105 feet, 5 inches was good for eighth place in the discus competition.

Highland?s 4x800 relay team of Popham, Lampe, Kody Wood and Chris Ford took second place in 8:32.96, and the distance medley relay team of Stewart, Wood, Trey Brenneman and Ford finished third in 3:59.40. The quartet of McFarland, Wood, Brenneman and Stewart took fourth place in the 4x200 relay in 1:35.96, and the shuttle hurdle relay team of Ben Bean, Gregory Barber, Tanner Vonnahme and Hootman came in seventh in 1:09.02. Highland?s 4x100 relay team of Barber, Wood, Eden and Stewart was seventh in 47.67 seconds.

WACO tied Lone Tree for fourth place with 65 points.

The Warriors won conference titles in a pair of events. Senior Kevin Anderson cleared 6 feet, 4 inches to win the high jump competition, and junior Dylan Carlson won the 110-meter high hurdles in 14.86 seconds.

Carlson also took third place in the 400-meter hurdles in 59 seconds flat, and he anchored the Warriors? shuttle hurdle relay team ? which also included Anderson, Brett Hesseltine and Bryce Achen ? to a second-place finish in 1:01.52.

WACO was also runner-up in the 4x100 and 1,600 medley relays. The quartet of Hesseltine, Anderson, Achen and Carlson took second place in the 4x100 relay in 45.74 seconds, and the 1,600 medley relay team of Achen, Hesseltine, Tyler Ayers and Braden Blake was runner-up in 3:53.70.

Hesseltine took fourth place in the 100-meter dash in 11.70 seconds, and Anderson finished seventh in the 200-meter dash in 23.87 seconds. Senior Klinton Garrett finished fourth in the 800-meter run in 2:05.11, and he was seventh in the 400-meter dash in 55.18 seconds. Freshman Jorge Chacone came in eighth in the 3,200-meter run in 11:38.81.

Host Columbus finished eighth on its home track with 50 points. Junior Ricky Rivers won the conference title in the long jump with a leap of 20 feet, 0.5 inches, and teammate Mauricio Ramirez, a freshman, was third in the event with a jump of 19 feet, 0.25 inches. Sophomore Angel Rodriguez cleared 5 feet, 8 inches to place sixth in the high jump competition.

Ramirez took second place in the 100-meter dash in 11.35 seconds. Rivers was runner-up in the 200-meter dash in 23.22 seconds, and senior Esteban Gutierrez finished fifth in 23.57 seconds.

The Wildcats? 4x200 relay team of Ramirez, Rivers, Ricardo Roman and Gutierrez finished second in 1:34.36, losing to a quartet from Pekin by a tenth of a second. The distance medley relay team of Zach Gaddy, Rodriguez, David Ayala and Mitchell Roush came in seventh in 4:08.05, and the shuttle hurdle relay team of Gutierrez, Rodriguez, Martin Zarate and Gaddy was eighth in 1:09.94.