Pekin opponents left in the dust once more

PACKWOOD ? Another meet, another victory for the Pekin boys? track team.

The Panthers won their home invitational Thursday night scoring 191.5 points. Albia was second with 160, and Twin Cedars came in third with 78.5.

But even without looking at the success his team has found so far in the young season, head coach Davis Eidahl is seeing his team come together.

?Regardless of the places, the thing I can take away from the meet is is the waay we are competing through the entire race,? he said. ?I can see improvement at every meet in that area.?

Doing a their fair share of that competing Thursday was Pekin?s middle-distance runners. The group posted wins in the 4x800 and 1600 medley relays and Jacob Cooley added another victory in the open 800 with a time of 2:18.

Cooley also ran on the 4x800 team with Eli Harper, Graham Wittrock and Brady Lamb that won with a time of 9:22. The 1600 medley relay squad consisted of Hunter Maeder, Cohen Philips, Trey Sathoff and Eli Harper running a time of 4:00.

Lamb carried that middle-distance success into his quarter-mile races where he took second in the 400-hurdles (57.80) and anchored the 4x400 team to another runner-up finish in 3:45. Maeder, Wittrock and Sathoff led off that Panther relay.

Sathoff stayed undefeated in the high jump for the year tying teammate Bryce Sines for the victory with jumps of 6-feet, two-inches.

Sines also posted a second-place finish in the long jump (20? 0.5?) and took that same attitude to the track where he won the 200-meter dash (23.61) and placed second in the 100 with a season-best time of 11.08).

Keeping with tradition, Zach Mosbey won another shot put event with a season-best toss of 52-feet, four-inches before tacking on a second-place finish in the discus (139? 1?).

The Panthers will next run the Cedar Rapids co-ed on Monday and have one more home meet on the schedule ? their third of the year ? set for April 19.