Area athletes put on quite a show Tuesday for the inaugural Marv Smith Invitational, hosted by Iola High School.
From a breathtaking 200-meter dash, in which the top three finishers were separated by .04 seconds, to Iola’s Kaster Trabuc storming from behind to win the 1600 meters, there were several noteworthy performances at Iola’s Riverside Park.
The aforementioned 200 meters saw three standout area sprinters — Iola’s Brett Willis, Marmaton Valley’s Jaedon Granere and Chanute’s Rawley Chard running stride for stride down the stretch.
At race’s end it was Chard by a whisker, winning with a sparkling time of 24.51 seconds. Willis was a scant .02 behind for silver at 24.53 seconds; Granere third at 24.55 seconds.
It was that kind of a meet, which also featured athletes from Humboldt, Southern Coffey County and Anderson County.
Other highlights:
Trabuc trailed teammate Jesse Taylor and Anderson County’s Tucker Nelson for the first three laps of the four-lap 1600 before turning on the heat down the back straightaway of the final lap. He had cleared Taylor and Nelson by the time they rounded the final turn, to win in 5 minutes, 3.10 seconds. Taylor took silver, Nelson bronze.
Cole Moyer brought visions of Secretariat-at-Belmont by blasting away his nearest pursuers in the 3200-meter run. He led by a full straightaway within the first two laps of the eight-lap race and was never challenged down the stretch, winning by a whopping 45 seconds at 11:02.33
Willis finished his busy day with a pair of silver medals, in both the 100 and 200, while taking third in the 400 and in the long jump.
Evan Casner took in the 110-meter high hurdles, a fraction of a second ahead of Kyler Mittelemeier.
Iola’s Sage Barney raked in some serious hardware as well.
She led from start to finish, and then fended off a challenge by Anderson County’s Addie Fudge to win the girls 1600, at 6:12.01, to go with the gold she earned by winning the pole vault, clearing 8 feet in the process.
Freshman Karingten Hall joined Barney as a two-time winner, taking gold in a pair of loaded 100- and 200-meter finals.
But she had to settle for silver in the 400-meter dash — behind teammate Anna Beckwith, who has competed primarily at the junior varsity level this year. Beckwith was nearly 3 seconds faster than Hall in winning at 1:10.35.
Humboldt’s day was highlighted by Levi McGowen, who soared past the 40-foot mark in winning the triple jump at 40 feet, 6 inches.
His Cub teammate Maddox Johnson brought home silver in all three throwing events, the shot put, discus and javelin.
On the girls’ side, Anna Goforth took second in the discus, while McKenna Jones took third in the 800. Kinley Tucker took third in both the discus and shot put.
