The first year of the expanded Big 8 saw tight team races throughout with the McDonald County boys and Lamar girls winning team titles.
PHOTOS: BIG 8 CHAMPIONSHIPS – TRACK EVENTS
PHOTOS: BIG 8 CHAMPIONSHIPS – FIELD EVENTS
FULL RESULTS: BIG 8 CHAMPIONSHIPS
McDonald Country boys hang first banner
The McDonald County Mustang boys track program is well aware that the program lacked a banner in the gym at the school.
It is something that has motivated them all year.
“All season our coach has been talking about getting the title on the wall because our track team doesn’t have anything in our gym,” McDonald County junior Corbin Jones said. “I have been working all season for that. I knew I was going to be one of the higher point scorers so all day I was thinking about (the team). That was one thing that was thinking about ‘for the team’.”
The Mustangs will now be able to hang that banner after winning the Big 8 Conference championship with 113.5 points. Catholic finished second with 90 points. Nevada was third with 79.
Team success has been at the forefront of the Mustangs’ thinking all year according to second-year head coach Henri Whitehead.
“We never once thought this year ‘what are we going to do as individuals?’ it was always ‘what are we going to do for the team?’” Whitehead said. “These kids have been very flexible letting me put them in events. We had a guy who had never run the 800 until the last two weeks help us out with the 4×8. A lot of it is the kids believing and being able to participate in whatever events we need to help us win as a team. We are all in. This team has truly adopted the team spirit.”
McDonald County got a huge lift from Jones as he won the 100-meter dash (11.20), long jump (21’08.5) and triple jump (43’10.75) while finishing fourth in the 200-meter dash (22.87) to score 35 points by himself, which would have placed him ninth out of 14 in the team standings with just his individual output.
“It is scary because this only my second year, and you know you are going to get that once in a career athlete. I look at him (Jones) and think that this has got to be that guy,” Whitehead said. “I will tell you right now he still has miles to go. He hasn’t peaked yet. He is just one of those once in a lifetime athletes. He just came and helped make everybody believers.”
Jones and Lamar’s Kolin Overstreet were the only athletes on the boys’ side to win three individual gold medals. Overstreet swept the distance events. Nevada’s Devin McHugh was the only other multi-gold winner on the boys’ side with wins in the 200 and 400.
Lamar girls pull away late for title
Lamar is the smallest school among the 14 Big 8 Conference members, so the Lady Tigers knew exactly where they were going to have to strike if they were going to come away with a team championship.
“We knew when they (Marshfield and Monett) were going to score and when they were going to score to an extent. We just had to take care of the events that we were good at. The 300-hurdles and 800 were really big for us because we knew that we were going to score points,” Lamar girls coach Brett Pettibon said. “We knew we had to be close to Monett (going into the final events) because they weren’t going to have a lot of points at the end of the meet. We also knew that Marshfield was going to kind of be the same way, but they were going to do better towards the end. The 300 hurdles and the 800 is where we knew we could do that and we really did a good job.”
Lamar outscored Marshfield 26-8 and Monett 26-2 in the 300-meter hurdles and 800-meter run combined on the way to 106 team points and a Big 8 championship. Marshfield finished runner-up with 100 points. Monett was third with 83 points.
“It (the championship) is pretty special. With it being a bigger conference it makes it harder to win. What used to get third now gets sixth or seventh which makes it a lot tougher,” Pettibon said. “You can’t just throw somebody in a relay and get points.
Lamar used strong depth to win the meet with just one first place finish coming from freshman Kyleigh Talbott in the 300-meter hurdles.
“We had a lot of girls step up today and do well,” Pettibon said. “We had one girl (Halee Doss) who could barely walk last week because she got hurt in the hurdles and she came out and PR’ed and scored enough points to make the difference.”
Lamar, which was the only Class 3 school to finish in the top four at the Big 8 Championships, will now turns its attention to the postseason competing against schools of a similar size.
“It is a big boost for them. This is going to help a lot. When we compete against those teams we know that we can compete against anybody as a team,” Pettibon said.
Marshfield’s Brianna Utecht brought home the most individual gold medals on the girls’ side with three. Nevada’s Calli Beshore was the only other athlete on the girls’ side with multiple individual gold medals. She won the 1600 and 3200-meter runs.
Monett’s Kaesha George broke the 150-foot barrier in the javelin throw with a mark of 150’03 on her second throw. She is just shy of the overall state leader who has a season-best throw of 155’00.
