Springfield Public Schools and it's five high schools (Central, Glendale, Hillcrest, Kickapoo, Parkview) host the Glendale Girls Night Out and the Hillcrest Boys Invitational every year on a Thursday and Friday in early April at Parkview's JFK Stadium. The meets attract schools from a wide range of sizes, classes, and areas of the state including southwest, south, mid-south, west-central, mid-Missouri, as well as the Kansas City and St. Louis areas.
The Girls Night Out meet on Thursday was held in bitterly cold conditions with consistent winds making the high temperature of 52-degrees feel more like the mid-30's. Friday's forecast was worse with a high in the mid-40's, but the wind was held in check for the most part, making conditions more bearable than Thursday. It was still cold and plenty of athletes wore tights, long sleeves, or even hooded sweatshirts under their uniforms. While clouds filled the sky nearly the whole day, the sun peaked thru for a short time late in the meet. After the meet was over and the parking lot empty of buses, the clouds cleared, and the sunshine poured down.
There were no preliminaries heats. Teams were allowed two entries for each individual event and one team for each relay. Medals were given to top-8 event finishers, but no team scores were tallied. Field eventers were allowed four attempts in the horizontal jumps and throws.
It was a great day for the West Plains Zizzers. Had team scores been counted, the Zizzers would have totaled 59 points to finish 3rd. West Plains junior Heston Miller had an excellent meet. Miller captured the 100 and 200-meter dash individual titles in easy fashion. In the 100 he ran 11.01-seconds to win by nearly a quarter of a second and took the half-lap race in 22.32-seconds for a 0.56-second margin of victory. Heston also anchored the first place 4x2 to an easy win in 1:31.09 to edge the runner-up by nearly two-full seconds. Heston and West Plains also captured the 4x100 title in 43.81-seconds with a 0.63-second margin of victory.
West Plains senior Joshua Leazer also shined for the Zizzers on a cold and gloomy day. Leazer ran legs on the winning 4x100 and 4x200 as well as going long in the triple jump. Leazor hopped, skipped, and jumped his way to a PR (personal record) and the Missouri #3 best mark on the season. Leazor went 14.06m/46-1.5' for West Plains alum and jumps coach Greg Dixon.
West Plains senior Joshua Leazer captured the Triple Jump and ran legs on the winning 4x100 and 4x200.
Another athlete from a south-central Missouri school did some flying and earned two titles in Springfield. Liberty-Mountain View senior Jentry Acklin took home the gold medal in the 110 and 300-meter hurdles. Acklin ran 15:17-seconds for the 110's just off his PR of 15.04 set earlier in the week. Acklin then ran 40.19-seconds for the 300-meter hurdles to win by a half-second.
Liberty-Mountain View senior Jentry Acklin earned both hurdle crowns.