NEODESHA – With sophomore Hadley Splechter, Yates Center’s track and field team has one of the most talented distance runners in the state, but it isn’t the presence of Splechter alone that makes the Wildcats unique.
In addition to the headliner, the Wildcats feature the junior duo of Colin Bedell and Jordan Smith, giving them a trio of top-notch distance runners.
“Distance is our backbone,” Yates Center coach Jennie Davis said.
The tight-knit group is in their first year of running together, but they have already experienced a huge amount of success.
After Splechter and Bedell convinced Smith to join the cross-country team this fall, that trio dominated area cross-country meets and in the state meet, all three finished in the top seven with Splechter in second, Bedell in fourth and Smith in seventh.
“Hadley is really good at pushing you to do more than you think you can do,” Smith said. “We push Colin to do the sprints and they push me in the distance.”
Now it was Bedell’s turn to try out a new sport. Smith and Splechter convinced their teammate to join the track team and the trio has immediately recaptured the success from the fall.
“We finally convinced him to go out,” Smith said of Bedell.
At Thursday’s Neodesha Invitational, Splechter, Bedell and Smith finished 1-2-3 in the 3,200-meter run.
“We knew that we probably weren’t going to be contested here,” Splechter said about the slower pace the trio took to begin the race. “Colin had one more race, so we just took it easy and got the win.”
Spletcher also won the 1,600-meter run while Smith took third and Bedell was seventh. In the 800-meter run, Splechter and Smith finished second and third respectively.
“It helps a lot,” Smith said of running with his teammates. “It gives you someone you are familiar running with and when they go, you go. We just try and match Hadley’s pace.”
The 4×800-meter relay is understandably a strong point for the Wildcats with Kobe Forsyth joining that premier trio to form a dominant force. The Wildcats were able to comfortably cruise to a 30-second margin of victory in the relay.
“We are pretty confident in (the 4×800),” Smith said. “We’ve only been pushed once or twice and our best times were in the beginning of the year. We feel like we can win state with it.”
While the strength of the team is in the longer distances, Levi Cooper headlines a talented group of Wildcat sprinters. Cooper took first in the 400-meter dash and second in the 200-meter dash.
Cooper also anchored a 4×400 relay team that took second with Quin Lowder, Forsyth and Bedell joining him on the team.
