CHESTERFIELD, Mo. – In the race to qualify for sectionals, a handful of teams put themselves on the short list of state championship contenders with a strong showing at Saturday’s district meets.
Eureka picked up points all over the track to claim the Class 4 District 2 boys’ title with 137 points. Eureka coach Brad DeMattei said he wasn’t going to get too caught up in what a district title might mean moving forward, but he did appreciate the accomplishment and wanted to celebrate two strong weeks on the track by his Wildcats.
“It means a lot,” DeMattei said. “We came off of a great conference victory last weekend and kept good performances going this weekend. The boys came out and competed well, and we’re really proud of them.
“I haven’t even thought that far ahead. I wanted to see what happened here and then start looking toward next week.”
Eureka picked up a big chunk of its points on the speed of Haile Wilson. The senior Wildcat won the 100- and 200-meter dashes in 10.96 and 22.55, respectively.
“It was good on the 100; I tripped out of the blocks, but I still got a good 10.96,” Wilson said. “And the 200, I ran six times before that, so that’s not my PR. I still ran well and everything. I know there’s a lot of fast guys out there so I’ll try to prepare and get a good time for next week.”
Wilson also ran legs on the winning 400- and 800-meter relays, and Wilson said he was especially pleased with those performances given that the Wildcats had to use an alternate on both relays. Wilson also knows both he and the team will have to continue to improve to see similar results at Saturday’s Sectional 1 meet at Summit High School.
“We can probably get our handoffs better because I saw a couple messed up,” Wilson said. “And, I can get my blocks better. I was kind of nervous running it and trying to qualify and I guess the jitters got to me. I forgot my fundamentals, and just going through my fundamentals would help me a lot.”
DeMattei said the Wildcats also enjoyed some important points out of sophomore thrower Tanner Sobotka, who picked up a qualifying fourth-place finish in both the shot put and discus.
Kirkwood was second in the boys standings with 115 points as Amon Mason won both hurdles races, Eric Phillips took the long jump and Bryant Boyd won the high jump. Lafayette finished third with 106 1/3 points.
Lafayette’s girls team also enjoyed some district success, pulling out the team title by leapfrogging both Summit and Eureka with a victory in the final event. Winning the 1,600-meter relay (4:00.11) gave the Lancers the 10 points needed to move to 107 points. Summit had been in the lead heading into the final event and finished tied for second with Eureka with 104 points.
.jpg)
Lafayette also picked up two more gold medals with Ebony Hopgood’s 58.88 in the 400-meter dash, and Courtney Palm’s 5 feet, 4 inches in the high jump.
Summit scattered its points around the track, and Anna Leitensdorfer had a hand in nearly half of that tally.
Leitensdorfer started her day with a third-place finish in the triple jump 34-9. She came back and helped her 800-meter relay to a sectional qualifying spot with a fourth-place finish, which came as the result of Webster Groves DQ in the event for a handoff out the zone.
The senior Falcon got herself in the finals of the long jump and then came back to the track to anchor the 400-meter relay to victory. She got the baton in second and dug out enough extra umph to get past Webster Groves’ Marquita Cooper in a near photo finish time of 49.88 to 49.92.
“When I got the handoff I saw Webster in front of us, and I didn’t know if I was going to catch her,” Leitensdorfer said. “I started gaining on her, and at the last 50 meters I’m like, ‘You know, I can pass this girl.’ So I confess I got a little mad and that somehow made me run a little faster, and I somehow caught her.”
Leitensdorfer confessed to being initially fatigued during her first long jump attempts. After the 400-meter relay victory, she had a little extra bounce in her step. Leitensdorfer returned to the long jump runway and hit 15-11 on her final attempt to win the event.
“I was so tired and that’s why my long jumps weren’t exactly what I was hoping for, but I qualified for the finals,” Leitensdorfer said. “Then after that 4x100 I felt reinvigorated because we got first and I thought, ‘I can do this for the long jump.’ The races kind of end up like a warm up for me for the long jump.
“My PR is 16-10, but if a 15-11 wins it, I’ll take it. I did not expect that today, and I’m totally cool with it. I was jumping 15-3s and 15-4s and got kind of deterred I guess. My coach was like, ‘This is your last jump. Make it count.’ Turns out that’s the one I needed because every jump counts.”
Summit added individual victories by Cailin Collins in the pole vault and Aliyah Brown in the shot put and discus.
Kirkwood’s Jocelyn Payne also advanced to sectionals in four events, including the two hurdle races. She won the 100-meter hurdles in 15.27 and the 300-meter hurdles in 45.08, which was more than a second ahead of second place.
“It was hard but I had fun,” Payne said of winning the hurdles. “It was pretty clean. I had a couple mistakes, but I tried to clean the ones that I could, but overall it was still good.”
Payne anchored the winning 800-meter relay team and she advanced in her final event, the 1,600-meter relay, with a fourth-place finish. Overall, she knows the task gets that much harder next week.
“It’s a little bit more pressure because it’s going to be that much harder and only the best of the best are going to be there,” Payne said.