PAOLA — Short-handed in a big meet, Iola High’s boys and girls finished eighth in their respective divisions at Thursday’s Paola High Invitational track meet.
The Mustangs scored 30 points in the 15-team field. Lamar, Mo., won the boys’ title with 103 points followed by Lansing with 93 and Louisburg with 80.
The Fillies tallied 37 points using just four girls in the meet. Paola took the girls’ championship with 159 points. Lansing was a distant second with 76 points and Pittsburg scored 65 for third.
“This was a really tough meet — tougher than a regional meet. Paola keeps adding quality teams to it and scoring points has gotten more difficult,” said Marvin Smith, Iola High head track coach.
“That was one of the things that influenced me to hold out several girls and boys and take them to Chanute High’s junior varsity meet on Monday.”
Paola scored seven places and awarded medals to the top four places in each event.
Roman Yocham led the Mustangs with a gold-medal performance in the 3200-meter run in 10 minutes, 45.3 seconds. Yocham also earned the third-place medal in the 1600-meter race in 4:53.0.
Adam Kauth captured the fourth-place medal in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles in 43.5 seconds. He finished fifth in the 110-meter high hurdles in 16.9 seconds.
Smith said Kauth had a really good race in the high hurdles. “He hit the last hurdle or he would have had an even better time.”
Smith said Mikal Bossell posted a good time in the 400-meter dash at 53.9 seconds and finished fifth. Bossell and A. Kauth combined with Jacob Harrison and Tyler McIntosh for sixth place in the 4×400-meter relay race in 3:44.3.
“Mikal and Jacob have had injuries this past week and I scratched them from the 100 and 200 preliminaries and took Jacob out of the 400,” Smith said.
“Roman and Adam had excellent races.”
The Mustang 4×800-meter relay team of Christian Kauth, Harrison, Tyler Powelson and Tyler McIntosh finished seventh in 9:17. The 4×100-meter relay foursome of A. Kauth, McIntosh, Harrison and Bossell placed seventh in 47.3 seconds.
