By RYAN WALKER
Bluffton’s boys’ team easlier ran to an ACAC championship Friday night, as the Tigers and the Southern Wells Raiders competed at the conference meet at Bluffton.
The Tigers boys’ team highlighted the event, coming in first for the third-straight season with a team score of 152.5
Head coach Brent Kunkel and the coaching staff met together to discuss the meet and projected that the Tigers had a good chance of winning it, but the team outperformed those projections by a long shot.
“First off, all the credit to the kids,” Kunkel said after the meet. “As coaches, we talk, we meet, we look at strategy, and we came in and had us winning with around 130 points, give or take, but to go 152 (points), that just shows the kids outperformed where they should have been.”
Bluffton had several boys’ event winners to propel it to another conference crown, including the 4x100m relay team, Tyler Godwin in the 1600m and the 800m, the 4x400m, and Johnny Cruz in the shot put.
Throughout the season, coach Kunkel has challenged both teams all around in the sprints and other events to help score crucial team points, adding to the distance points. On Friday, those events included Maksym Laishevkin in the long jump, Andrew Hunt in the hurdles, and the 4x100m relay team did just that.
One of the runners that Kunkel shouted out was Sam Baumgartner, who went through a gauntlet in his final ACAC meet. The senior ran the mile and two mile, the 800 and the 4x800m. Despite the challenge, Baumgartner got a text message from Kunkel encouraging him to give it all in his final conference meet.
“A kid like Sam Baumgartner, he won the 4×8, but we asked him to run the mile, the 800, the 4×8, and the two mile, and that is a killer. I texted him and said it’s your senior year, and this group of seniors have never lost a conference title because they had the Covid year freshman year. I kind of put that in his core and said, ‘Hey man, you have a chance to do something special, and he stepped up and did that.”
For a building Bluffton girls’ team, the Tigers finished fifth. Like the boys’ they outperformed projections.
“The girls, I thought again, had a really good night coming into the meet, I had them slated for them to get around 65, and they had 74,” Kunkel said. “Again, they outperformed.”
Kunkel has been pleased with his underclassman and perhaps has some stars in the making that showed out, specifically Rylynn Penick and Ava Troxel, who placed third or higher in the sprinting events.
The biggest showing for the Tigers girls’ team was the 4x100m group with Haley Gibson, Lauren Reiff, Penick, and Troxel, which finished first over Woodlan by .08.
“Our 4×100, I’ve been saying all year I think this is a conference championship team,” Kunkel said. “Haley, Lauren, Rylynn, and Ava to become a 4×1 conference champion is a big deal because Woodlan and Jay County are pretty strong in the sprints.
On the Southern Wells side, they finished last in both the girls and the boys’ events. The roster is smaller than the schools in the ACAC, but head coach Gary Paxson is excited for a young group of underclassmen and building upon what they’ve already started this season.
“I think their experience has helped them the most. The experience that they get running day in and day out against all these older kids is just going to help them,” he said.
Paxson added that the team was disappointed with the results in the places rather than their times, which were relatively the same as they had been all season.
The reaction was the same in the Wells County meet when the Raiders finished last against Norwell and Bluffton, a group that wants to compete and get onto the next level.
“We’re overwhelmed,” he said. “Our younger kids especially learned how fast the conference is. Our hurdlers and short sprints are pretty fast, but they learned some things. They still ran some pretty good times.”
“I’m glad that they want to be competitive,” he added. “But we’re young and all these other teams are running juniors and seniors, and we’re down there with freshman. But we’re doing alright.”
A bright spot for Southern Wells was high jumper Brooke Tonner, who was the lone Raider to win an event.
She shone at the conference meet, jumping at 5-1 and nearly clearing the 5-2 mark.
“I’m really excited for her. She came in and was focused. She didn’t have as many jumps because they started at 4-6, and she was able to go in there, and she got 5-1.”
Paxson said that yesterday in practice, Tonner was hitting 5-3 in practice and will continue to work for the sectional coming up.
Bluffton will host South Adams and Heritage starting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 9.
Southern Wells will travel to Whitko at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 9.
Top performers for the Bluffton boys:
• Sam Baumgartner, Jude Baumgartner, Levi Johns, and Tyler Godwin first in the 4x800m relay with a time of 8:31.20.
• Andrew Hunt second in the 110m hurdles with a time of 16.06.
• Godwin first in the 1600m with a time of 4:44.99, and Sam Baumgartner third with a time of 4:48.91.
• Alex Mechling, Ben Ramseyer, Khamel Moore, and Anthony Cruz second in the 4x100m relay with a time of 45.65.
• Jude Baumgartner second in the 400m with a time of 54.78.
• Godwin first in the 800m with a time of 2:04.49.
• Ramseyer second in the 200m with a time of 24.28 and Moore third with a time of 24.63.
• Johns third in the 3200m with a time of 10:46.94.
• Hunt, Godwin, Jude Baumgartner, and Maksym Laishevkin third in the 4x400m relay with a time of 3:41.70.
• Laishevkin second in the long jump with a jump of 18-9 3/4.
• Jude Baumgartner third in the high jump with a jump of 5-6.
• Cruz first in the shot put with a throw of 52-5 3/4.
Top performers for the Bluffton girls:
• Rylynn Penick second in the 100m with a time of 13.51.
• Haley Gibson, Penick, Lauren Reiff, and Ava Troxel first in the 4x100m relay with a time of 52.67.
• Troxel third in the 300m with a time of 28.61.
• Reiff third in the shot put with a throw of 36-2 1/2.
• Reiff second in the discus with a throw of 124-6.
• Troxel first in the long jump with a jump of 16-1 1/2.
Top performers for Southern Wells:
• Brooke Tonner first in the high jump with a jump of 5-1.
• Kane Jenkins eighth in the 110m hurdles with a time of 18.12.
• Joshua Bricker, Miles Garrett, Andrew Aker, and Timothy Garrett sixth in the 4x800m relay with a time of 9:08.85.
• Timothy Garret fourth in the 1600m with a time of 4:51.09.
• Jenkins eighth in the 300m hurdles with a time of 46.93.
• Bricker eighth in the 3200m with a time of 11:06.02.
• Peyton Long seventh in the shot put with a throw of 38-5.
Final team scores
Boys:
Bluffton first 152.5, Woodlan second 99, Jay County and Heritage third 89, South Adams fifth 71, Adams Central sixth 59, and Southern Wells seventh 21.5.
Girls:
Woodlan first 118.5, Jay County second 115.5, South Adams third 111, Heritage fourth 84.5, Bluffton fifth 74.5, Adams Central sixth 62, and Southern Wells seventh 14.
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