CHANUTE — Freshman Emery Driskel tied Iola High’s 300-meter intermediate hurdle record in her heat of the event at Friday’s Chanute High Invitational. Then came the next heat with IHS senior Kendra Taiclet.
Taiclet broke the tie and the record, which she held, taking the silver medal in the 300-meter intermediates. Taiclet ran the race in 49.6 seconds and Driskel got the bronze medal in 50.1 seconds.
Taiclet had already re-established the IHS record in the 110-meter high hurdles earlier in the meet. She claimed the gold medal in 15.6 seconds, breaking her record time of 15.8.
Jacob Harrison, a junior, finished sixth in the boys’ 400-meter dash at Chanute. He ran the race in 52.4 seconds.
“Jacob had a really good meet, running 52.4 in the open 400 and another 52-second leg on our 4×400 giving us an early lead in the race,” said Marvin Smith, IHS head track coach.
“I’ve never seen a tougher 400 in an invitational. It was tough enough with league runners then you add Humboldt’s (Tanner) McNutt and (Nick) Keazer and Colgan’s Beck. There were four runners under 52 seconds and that was without Willard of Fort Scott and Krull of Parsons, who run under 52 seconds.”
So the stage is set for this week’s Southeast Kansas League meet.
All the SEK teams bring their best track and field athletes and converge on Iola’s Riverside Park stadium Thursday. Field events start at 3:30 p.m. and the preliminaries for running events begin at 4:30.
If semifinals are needed in any running events, those start 10 minutes after the conclusion of preliminaries. Finals for the running events begin at 6 p.m.
Smith said all but Columbus were at the Chanute Invitational last Friday.
Pittsburg’s girls won the Chanute meet with 155 points followed by Chanute with 118. The Fillies were third with 77 points and Labette County was fourth with 59 points.
Chanute won the boys’ title by one point, 83 to 82, over non-league member Pittsburg’s St. Mary’s-Colgan. Labette County was third with 71 points and Coffeyville was fourth with 63 points. The Mustangs ended up eighth with 35 points.
“It was a good look at how the SEK meet shapes up. This will be one of the best SEK meets in a long time on both the boys’ and girls’ sides,” Smith said.
The Mustangs’ 4×800-meter relay team captured the gold medal at Chanute. The foursome of Tyler Powelson, Jeremy Spears, Tyler McIntosh and Christian Kauth posted a winning time of 9 minutes, 5.9 seconds. The Mustang 4×800-meter relay is the five-time defending SEK champion. C. Kauth has two SEK titles on the relay and Powelson was a member of the 2011 SEK championship relay team.
Justin Baker claimed the bronze medal in the pole vault, clearing 9 feet, 6 inches. Stephen McDonald placed fourth in the discus with a season’s-best throw of 125 feet.
