LADUE, Mo. – Rock Bridge showed it has the depth and diversity to be a Class 4 girls contender when the postseason rolls around.
The Bruins rolled up 146 points to win the Kirkwood Dale Collier Invitational Saturday, which was held at MICDS while the Kirkwood stadium undergoes renovations.
Rock Bridge won six of 18 events, including Mubinah Khaleel’s sweep of the throwing events. Khaleel, a senior, won the discus with a throw of 115 feet, 7 inches and the shot put with 36-5. She qualified last year for the state meet in the shot put, but she scratched on all three attempts.
Khaleel missed nearly a month of the track season as part of Rock Bridge’s Class 5 championship basketball team, which won its third consecutive title.
“Last year at this time, I’d had a month more practice,” Khaleel said. “Being late this year my technique is still a little rusty. For right now it’s just technique. My coach is always saying it’s just one or two technical things that will get me to 40 feet again.”
Madison Wipfler added a victory in the triple jump (36-1), Sam Farmer won the 1,600-meter run (5:17.16) and Kayla Funkenbusch won the 3,200 (11:45.78).
Kirkwood finished second with 88 points, and Ladue was third with 87. McCluer was in the mix early behind the efforts of Lydia Harrold, who won the 200-meter dash (25.30) and anchored the winning 400 and 800 relays.
Harrold said she had been aiming for the school record of 24.5, and she was also aware that some of her biggest competitors were at the KU Relays.
“I mostly worry about me,” Harrold said. “I was on KU’s website all weekend for results because I’d love to be there. But I had business to take care of here.”
The Kirkwood boys were locked in a tight team race with SLUH, and Bryant Boyd helped the Pioneers’ tally with his school-record high jump of 6-8. The previous record had been 6-7 ½.
Boyd said he enjoys jumping at MICDS, which is where he set last year’s high mark of 6-5 during the sectional meet.
“The track is familiar to me and I PR’d last year so I came in with the mindset that it’s a great day to PR, and the weather was working for me and I got loose,” Boyd said. “It’s just the feeling of the apron. I just like it here, and it’s just like Kirkwood’s high jump apron.
“You can definitely tell how good the jump will be once you leave the ground because you put so much power into the jump, you just realize right when you lift off that this will be the jump to clear it.”
Boyd nearly cleared his third attempt at 6-9, but his feet clipped the bar. He also claimed third in his second long jump of the season with a PR of 20-3 ½.
SLUH pulled out the team title with a 1-2 finish in the 3,200-meter run en route to 141 points. Kirkwood finished second with 121, and McCluer was third with 85.
Jack Sullivan pulled away over the final laps to secure the victory in 9:45.51, and he turned around at the finish line to see teammate Matt Hennessey coming in second at 9:50.82.
“Through the first five laps I could see his shadow, and I knew which one was his, which was good because I knew we needed both of us together,” Sullivan said. “Then I didn’t see his shadow anymore and got really worried. Turning around and seeing him cross the finish line made me really happy.
“I hadn’t run the 3,200 with other people this year yet. It was nice run with people and PR by eight seconds. I didn’t think I’d come out and break it especially after running the 1,600.”
It was Sullivan’s first attempt at doubling up in the two distance races. Hennessey was going through his own learning curve as he was racing the 3,200 for only the second time. He did run cross country, but he previously spent his springs on the tennis courts.
While adjusting to a new sport and figuring out his strategy, Hennessey said SLUH coach Joe Porter added a little bit of pressure by alerting the duo of the team’s need for top finishes by both of them.
“We were at ease getting ready down by the starting line, and then coach Porter came over and told us we had to go 1-2 in order to win the meet,” Hennessey said. “There was a lot more pressure after that. I want to say that it was bad, but I think it was good that he told us because then we knew what we had to do and what we had to accomplish and probably drove us a little harder.”