OSAWATOMIE — Scoring points in 16 events, Iola High’s Mustangs gave their head coach a pleasant shock Thursday.
“What a shot in the arm for our varsity boys. We graduated 126 points from our winning margin at Osawatomie last year,” said Marvin Smith, Iola head coach. “Winning the meet this year was a mild shock, and at my age, I can’t stand many shocks of any magnitude.”
The Mustangs defended their Osawatomie High Francis Wendt Invitational title with 121 points Thursday. Kansas City Christ Prep was second with 105.
Field events led the way for the Mustangs. The first gold medal of the day came in the high jump as Stephen McDonald cleared 5 feet, 6 inches.
Charles Apt, Ralph Shafer and Jacob Rhoads went 1-2-6 in the javelin. Apt’s winning distance was 167’4” followed by Shafer at 166’1”.
Kyle Heffern collected the gold in the discus with a throw of 125’8” and McDonald had a throw of 111’2” to place second. Eli Grover finished fourth with a toss of 107’1”.
“When we go to junior varsity meets, Coach (Pat) Lonergan stays home to work with varsity, so we took young throwers to a varsity meet so he could give them guidance as they threw. It paid off,” Smith said.
In the shot put, Heffern took the silver medal with a throw of 40’5”. Christian Kauth placed fifth in the triple jump with a leap of 38’ 31⁄2”.
The Mustangs were 1-3-6 in the pole vault as Drew Shepherd won the event, clearing 11’6”. Michael Wilson went over at 10 feet and Dylan Lower was sixth at 8’6”.
On the track, Roman Yocham was a double gold-medal winner. He won the 1600-meter race in 4 minutes, 45.9 seconds and later finished first in the 3200-meter race in 10:41.5.
Mikal Bossell was third in the 400-meter dash in 54.1 seconds. C. Kauth was fifth in the 800 meters in 2:10.9
The Mustang 4×800-meter relay team of C. Kauth, Apt, Tyler Powelson and Bossell was fourth in 8:56.6. Apt, C. Kauth and Bossell combined with Jacob Harrison for fifth in the 4×400-meter relay race in 3:43.6.
Marcus Sullivan placed fourth in the 100-meter dash in 11.8 seconds. He combined with Tyler McIntosh, Bossell and Rhoads for fifth in the 4×100-meter relay race in 47.5 seconds.
Adam Kauth took fifth in the 110-meter high hurdles in 17.5 seconds and fifth in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles in 45.9.
Scoring no points but getting a silver medal was the 4×100-meter field-event relay team of Heffern, Grover, Shaver and McDonald. They had a time of 51.6 seconds.
Iola goes to Burlington Tuesday and Chanute next Friday.
