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FORT WAYNE — With a trip to next week’s regional on the line, several Wells County track and field athletes answered the challenge and came up with qualifying performances at Thursday night’s boys sectional.
The Norwell Knights led all Wells County thinclads by advancing two relay teams and four individuals.
For Southern Wells, senior distance runner Lucas Hamilton led the Raiders by qualifying in two events and sophomore discus thrower Chase Harris also made it out.
Sophomore hurdler Mark Bowman was the only Bluffton Tiger to advance.
The top four individuals and relay teams automatically advance to the Fort Wayne regional which will be held again at Wayne Stadium where the sectional was held.
The state-ranked Homestead Spartans scored 165 points and ran away with the sectional team championship. That left Heritage, Harding and Fort Wayne Wayne to battle it out for second place and that distinction went to Heritage with 78.5 points.
Harding was third with 75.5 and Wayne was fourth with 71. Norwell took fifth place with 64, followed by Bellmont with 58, Fort Wayne Elmhurst 38, South Adams 29, Southern Wells 20, Bluffton 11, Adams Central 7 and Fort Wayne Canterbury 6.
The top two finishes for the Knights were in the 4x800 meter relay and 800 meter run, and senior Klayton Reed led the way in both.
Reed anchored the 3200 relay team, which was runner-up to Homestead in 8:21.7. The first leg of the Knights’ relay team was ran by freshman Alex Cushman, followed by Ethan Roebuck and Sean Cossairt.
Reed followed that later in the meet with a 1:59.98 in the 800, behind Cody White of Heritage who was clocked in 1:59.36. Cossairt was third in the 800 in 2:01.13.
Also third for the Knights were the 4x400 meter relay team, senior hurdler Talal Maree and senior pole vaulter Matt Becker.
Maree also teamed with Sean McAvoy, Cossairt and Reed in the 1600 relay, recording a time of 3:31.77.
Maree finished the 300 meter intermediate hurdle race in 40.68 seconds. His time was close to his school record of 40.54.
“He ran well,” said Norwell head coach Josh Gerber. “He got a little bit tired about the second-to-last hurdle and I think he hit it, but other than that he ran a pretty good race.”
After an awkward start in the vaulting, Becker continued and ended up with a vault of 13 feet, 6 inches on a cold, windy night.
Still, the season continues for the handful of Knights.
“A lot of guys took some times down. We didn’t have any first-place finishes, but that’s OK, guys moved on and when you move on you’ve got another chance to run again,” said Gerber.
Hamilton ran his best time of the season in the 1600 meters, taking second place behind White. White finished in 4:37.87 and Hamilton in 4:41.01.
Hamilton started out back in the pack but gradually moved up before making his move with about 300 meters to go.
“I just usually like to sit back and watch everyone else make moves in the first two laps and try to pour it on in the last two and catch everybody,” said Hamilton.
Hamilton also was fourth in the 3200 meters in 10:18.17, but after the meet, he decided to scratched out of that event in the regional.
“He likes the challenge of going after kids who are a little better than him,” said Southern Wells head coach Gary Paxson. “I think he’s happy with his performance tonight and we’ll see what happens next week.”
Harris also claimed a fourth-place finish, throwing the discus 138 feet, 10 inches. The wind was coming into the faces of the contestants and pushing the discus down.
“The wind was not in our favor and I had a couple of bad releases,” said Harris, “but I guess moving on is moving on. I accomplished my goal (of going to regional). So, I’ll just do better next week up here.”
In the 110 meter high hurdle finals, Bowman finished fourth in 15.44 seconds.
“I had a pretty bad start, but then I got in the motion,” said Bowman.
Bowman was running in the lane beside Homestead’s Andy Alvarez, who was third, and he just wanted to stay with him during the race.
“I’m pretty excited about going to regional,” added the stoic Bowman.
Bluffton head coach Bret Grover has been working with Bowman in practice over the last month of the season.
“The last two or three weeks, he’s really come on pretty strong,” said Grover. “His starts are coming along fairly well, but he’s such a strong kid and he just has that natural ability that he can just make up ground.”
Overall, Grover was pleased with the performance of his team despite the fact that only Bowman made it out.
“With losing 10 seniors like we did this year, it was pretty tough to get guys to come out (for the team), but I’m looking forward to next year,” said Grover.
The regional is the last step before the state finals on Saturday, May 31 at Indiana University’s Robert C. Haugh Track and Field Complex.
Advancement from regional to the state finals is as follows: 1st, 2nd and 3rd place regional winners in all individual events and relays plus any individual meeting or relay team the three participant standard in the regional finals of their event. An individual or relay team shall not advance to the state finals from the regional finals unless the time is recorded by fully automatic timing (FAT). If there are less than three in any event meeting the three participant standard, the next best regional finishers shall be added to bring the total number of entrants to 27 in each event.
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