By Brock Sisney (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
CARL JUNCTION — The Nevada girls enjoyed an unexpected historic moment and the Webb City boys vaulted ahead of their conference rival Willard in the final event of the Class 4, District 6 meet Saturday at Carl Junction High School.
The Lady Tigers finished a distant second at the Big 8 Conference meet the week before, so one might say that Nevada winning districts was as big a surprise as the fact that it did not rain after late morning Saturday. In fact, despite a pair of lightning delays to start the day, the meet finished ahead of schedule.
“It’s kind of surreal,” Nevada head coach Ryan Watts said. “We kinda thought we were getting there, but they didn’t announce any updates throughout the meet so we were kinda guessing. Yeah, it’s been a long time since the girls at Nevada have done that. We think maybe the last time that they got a conference or district championship was 1997. It’s been a while, so they’re pretty excited.
“We had a lot of people step up that we didn’t really expect to do some things to help us. I don’t know how tight it ended up being, but yeah, it was a pleasant surprise. We didn’t intend to load up to try and win this, we were trying to get as many through (to sectionals) as we could. That’s why it was a pleasant surprise in that regard.”
Meanwhile, the Cardinals already have experience this season with going ahead in the final event, in both cases the pole vault. Earlier this season at the Joplin Invitational, Webb City trailed Joplin by 20.5 points entering the final event and three medalists earned Webb City 22 points and the meet title. (Webb City also finished two points ahead of Joplin to win the Central Ozark Conference title.)
Webb City’s dynamic pole vault duo of Pryce Mason and Grayson Smith finished 1-2 Saturday and their points helped earn the Cardinals a district title.
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“It feels good,” Webb City boys coach Dustin Miller said. “I love this class of kids. These seniors, I’ve said it in every interview all year long, they’re dedicated to track and field. They graduated last night, it’s been a long, emotional, difficult week for them and we’ve talked at length about how big of a challenge this would be to get through everything that needs to get through for our state competition. We did have a couple seniors not make it and that breaks our heart. They were on the bubble and some things didn’t go their way, but at the end of the day that’s why you have to run the races and top four advance.
“I’m proud of these guys. Hats off to Willard. My goodness, they had a great team meet. They picked up points they weren’t supposed to have and that’s a sign of a good team. They did a great job.”
The Cardinals won district titles in five events and accumulated seven seconds, five thirds, and three fourths en route to a final team score of 181 points.
“We don’t look great on paper when you look at the state meet,” Miller said. “I just know what we’re capable of doing and I know the character of these guys. I feel great about our chances. They can rank us sixth all day long, we’re going to show up when it matters, so we hope, and give ourselves a shot at a team trophy.
“I’ve been preaching at these guys all year. Don’t take these chances for granted, because we’ve had four shots at a trophy and we’ve ended up fifth three times and sixth once, and by some really small margins. Capitalize on our opportunities and give ourselves a chance to make history, and put our accomplishment on the back of the stadium forever. You’ll get a chance to look at it and puff your chest out about what you helped accomplish.”
Senior standout Mekhi Garrard won district titles in the long jump and the triple jump with marks of 6.7 and 14.01 meters, respectively, and he finished third in the 200-meter dash in 22.57 seconds.
“Mekhi Garrard ran a good 200, really surprised me, and then came back and beat a quality opponent in the long jump after that,” Miller said. “Solid mark, so he’s trending upwards. I told him I’m sick of looking at that school record in the long jump. I know Matt Berry would like to see it get broken, because his daughter’s Haidyn Berry, our jav, so that’d be cool.”
Senior hurdler Asa Morgan also claimed individual district titles in two events, winning the 110 hurdles in 15.55 and the 300 hurdles in 41.02.
“He’s only been running for 10 or 11 days off the high ankle sprain,” Miller said of Morgan. “If we keep this upward trajectory, he’ll have a shot to score at the state meet if we get there. It’s the hurdles, anything can happen.”
Fellow senior Mason won the pole vault with a clearance of 4.4 meters and Smith, a sophomore, was not far behind at 4.25.
“Two weeks now over 14 feet,” Miller said. “Yeah, we know Pryce won, Pryce is a stud, we know Pryce can go 15 feet, but for Grayson now, he’s ranked fifth in state but fourth in his section. It’s pretty tight for him to go over 14 feet twice and all of his jumps today, it looked like he had height for 14 feet. That’s big for us. We’ve got to get Grayson to state and we’ve got to have those state points to have a shot to accomplish our goal.”
The Lady Tigers, meanwhile, totaled three individual district titles and six seconds, six thirds, and two fourths on their way to 145.5 overall points Saturday.
Brooklyn Kutina-Smith and Clara Swearingen finished 1-2 in the 400 with times separated by a mere .27, 1:03.34 for Kutina-Smith and 1:03.61 for Swearingen.
Lillian Hart won a pair of district titles in the high jump and the triple jump with respective marks of 1.56 and 10.2 meters, and she also finished second in the long jump at 4.9 meters.
Jerica Collins in the javelin, Claire Pritchett in the shot put, and the 4×200 and 4×800 relays rounded out the Lady Tigers’ six second-place finishes Saturday.
“If I had to narrow it down,” Watts said. “I’d hate to even try to narrow it down to just one. It was a team effort across the board. We had everybody do what they were expected to do as far as seeding and we had a bunch of people step up. It was cool and I am proud. …
“I’m still surprised. When we were looking at going into this meet before conference, we thought we could win conference and maybe win districts, so we loaded it up to win conference and we didn’t, so it was like, okay, well, maybe if we can’t win conference we can’t win districts and so let’s try to get as many through as we can, then whatever happens happens and sure enough, everybody stepped up.”
On the boys side, Webb City, Willard, and Bolivar were the only schools to finish with more than 100 points.
Willard’s Elijah Aye won district titles in the 100 (11.30) and the 200 (22.40), Thomas Shuster took double gold in the 1600 (4:30.24) and the 3200 (9:55.29), and Marshall Swadley continued his dominance with double district gold in the discus (49.71M) and shot (16.57).
Bolivar’s Brett Pollock won districts in the 400 (51.64) and the 800 (2:01.78), the 4×400 and the 4×800 finished ahead of the pack, and Anson Pulsipher won the javelin with a toss of 46.53 meters.
On the girls side, Webb City’s Riley Hawkins won titles in the 800 (2:29.44) and the 3200 (11:52.56) and finished second in the 1600 (5:41.00). Her teammates Emily Beres and Haidyn Berry cleaned up in the throwing events: Beres took double gold in the discus (33.2M) and shot (11.66) and the similarly surnamed Berry won the javelin (35.38). The Lady Cardinals’ 4×800 also placed first.
The host Carl Junction also gave a strong showing with double gold for Shiloh Sluder in the 100 (12.72) and 200 (25.59) and Ally Montez in the 100 (15.08) and 300 (45.48) hurdles. The 4×100 also placed first and Salma Lewis and Olivia Vediz won first in the high and the long jump with marks of 1.56 and 5.01 meters, respectively.
Class 4, District 6
at Carl Junction High School
Team results, girls — Nevada 145.5, Webb City 125.5, Carl Junction 118, Bolivar 80.5, Rogersville 79, Monett 56.5, McDonald County 54, Hillcrest 43, Willard 23.
Team results, boys — Webb City 181, Willard 171.5, Bolivar 123, Monett 50.5, McDonald County 49.33, Carl Junction 42.33, Rogersville 41.33, Hillcrest 39, Nevada 30.
