The final qualifying meet is in the books, and a number of great performances were added.
Boys Highlights
-The distance races brought a tightly contested 800 with three guys within half of a second, all under two minutes. A familiar face to these races – Stephen Mugeche- took the victory with a new meet record of 1:59.49. Reno Law (Nebraska), and Kevin Ganahl (Marquette) also went under two minutes.
-Tulsa signee, Austin Del Rosso, won the mile in 4:35.35. He was closely followed by Kyle Pudenz, Dylan Hodgson, and Nathan Clark, all finishing within three tenths of Del Rosso.
-One of the best jumpers in the nation, J’Mari Ward (Cahokia, IL), had a good day jumping 23-2.5 and 48-3.25. Both of these easily beat the previous meet record.
-In an event that isn’t too familiar to Missouri guys, Patrick Kuzna recorded a mark of 57-9.5 in the weight throw, good enough for top 50 in the US.
Girls Results
-In the distance races, Iowa prep Stephanie Jenks put on a showcase, running 2:19 and 10:30. Another NXN Qualifier that had a good day in the distance events was Jamie Kempfer. Kempfer was third in the 80 running 2:25 but also ran a quality 5:10 mile.
-Three girls cleared 5-4 in the high jump. One of those was Alexa Harmon-Thomas who competed at the IAAF Youth Championship last year. Harmon-Thomas signed to compete for the Texas Longhorns this week. On the other end of the spectrum was freshman Carlie Queen. Queen, who cleared 5-6 at Arkansas, currently leads the nation for freshman in that event.
-Jessica Clark, third last year at the Class 3 State meet, cleared 11-0 in the Pole Vault.
Also this weekend was the USATF Ozark Association Championship. At this meet Maya Cody had a good triple – 7.81/26.09/62.4 – not a bad day of work.