Trojan track: Same corps leads at Hesston
Yoder ties school record
A strong group of top performers for the Hillsboro High School track and field teams once against led the Trojans to solid finishes Thursday at the Hesston Invitational.
Cody McMillen, who has led the Trojans this year with his strong distance running, was at it again Thursday with two individual golds.
He won the 1600 and 3200-meter relays, and was part of the first-place 4x800m relay team, and second-place 4x400 team.
"Cody was finally pushed in the 1600, and this is going to pay great dividends as we near the end of our season," head coach Dennis Boldt said.
Fellow senior Jacob Yoder added some points to the boys' second-place overall finish with second-place individual finishes in the 100 and 200m dashes.
His time of 22.8 seconds in the 200, tied the school record.
Nathan Vogel also had a silver medal to his credit with a 400m dash time of 51.87 seconds.
Grant Schnedier placed in both the 110 and 300m hurdle events, Johnathan Christian was fourth in the 800m run, and David Loewen was sixth in the discus.
The team's score could have been higher, had sprinter Ishmael Morris not been held out of individual races with an injury. Morris was part of the 4x100m relay team that took second.
"He was disappointed that he wouldn't be competing more since we were wanting to challenge Garden Plain," Boldt said. "But we want to make sure he will be ready for league and regional competition."
The trio of Dakota Kaufman, Chelsea Bebermeyer, and Tiffany Rooker once again led the Trojan girls' squad.
The three had five medals between them, and accounted for all the points except a sixth-place finish by the 4x100 relay team of Carmen Hawkinson, Kaufman, Shelby Koons, and Rooker.
Kaufman won the triple jump with a meet-record leap of 36 feet, three inches, and took third in the long jump, Bebermeyer was fourth in the discus and sixth in the shot put, and Rooker cleared nine feet on the pole vault to take fourth place.
As a team the girls were eighth out of 10.
"There were many good teams that raised our level of competitiveness and we came away with many of our best marks of the season," Boldt said of both teams. "Many of the teams competing today will be in our upcoming 3A regional, and this gave us an opportunity to see the competition first had."
The Trojans next meet is the Mid-Central Activities Association meet Friday at Nickerson, followed by a May 16 regional meet at Marion High School.
