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High-flying Chieftains

By Shawn Linenberger - | Apr 13, 2005

It’s known as track and field, but on Thursday at the Bobcat Relays, the Tonganoxie High girls team made sure the sport was known as field and track.

THS dominated field events at Basehor-Linwood, scoring 85 points before the first running event of the day.

Tonganoxie captured first place in five of seven field events.

Tracie Hileman won the long jump, Sarah Hartshorn won the shot put and discus, and Ali Pistora won the javelin and high jump.

In the other two events, Tonganoxie also was well-represented. Rachael Weston finished second and Jennifer Wagner third in the pole vault. In the triple jump, Amber Sanborn finished third and Hileman was fourth.

“The field events are doing tremendous,” THS coach Chris Weller said. “They’ve never been any better since I’ve been here.”

Sarah Hartshorn broke her own school record in the discus by more than three feet. Hartshorn broke the school record last season with a 116-foot, 11-inch throw. On Thursday, she had a throw of 119-9.

“I’ve never seen Matt Bond so excited since I’ve been around,” Weller said, referring to Tonganoxie’s throwing coach reacting to Hartshorn’s success. “He’s been coming in every day telling me how well she’s doing.”

Wagner set a new Bobcat Relay record in the 300 hurdles with a time of 49.67 seconds. Christy Weller, meanwhile set a new meet record in the 800 with a time of 2 minutes, 29.13 seconds. She beat Katie Jeannin’s previous meet record by five seconds. Jeannin graduated last May from THS.

Tonganoxie won the meet with 141 points. Eudora finished second with 106 in the nine-team invitational.

The Chieftains, who also won the Lansing Invitational on April 5, will try for their third team title Friday at the Eudora Invitational. The meet begins at 4 p.m.

That meet will be a 13-team invitational. A week later, the Chieftains will head down County Road 1 again for the Eudora Relays. That meet has just seven teams, but Weller said the Relays aren’t necessarily the smaller meet.

“It depends how you look at it,” Weller said. “The next week there’s only seven teams, but Baldwin will be there.

“They’re probably leading the state, but we should be competitive.”

BOYS TRACK

Robert Kirch competed in the 400 for the first time Thursday at the Bobcat Relays.

The senior took a pretty good crack at the new event.

Kirch won the 400 with a 54.10 time, just ahead of KC-Turner’s Bucky Murray, who finished with a 54.68 time.

“All I was thinking about was not dying,” Kirch said. “I still had a little left on that last 300.”

Kirch also won the long jump with a 20-7 3/4 leap.

Tonganoxie registered gold medals in five other events — the 800 (Levi Huseman), the 1,600 (Andy Kolman), the 4×400, the shot put (Kent Fleming) and the throwers relay.

Injuries hindered Tonganoxie, as Kaleb Lawrence and Zach Ditty still were nursing injuries sustained earlier in the week.

Sam Mitchell injured himself Thursday, but all three should be ready to go Friday at Eudora.

Tonganoxie still managed to escape the meet with a team victory. Tonganoxie scored 133 for the team title, outlasting Bonner Springs, which scored 115.

The meet champion wasn’t decided until the final event — the 4×800 relay.

Tonganoxie won the event after Bonner Springs was disqualified.

When Bonner Springs’ third runner handed the baton to its fourth runner, the third runner got in the way of Tonganoxie’s fourth runner, Levi Huseman. Bonner Springs was disqualified and Tonganoxie took first place. The ruling didn’t sit well with Bonner Springs coaches and runners.

Moments later, Tonganoxie and Bonner Springs students exchanged words in the stands, but Tonganoxie coaches directed their athletes and fans to the buses shortly after.