Thrice as nice: Humboldt’s Tanner McNutt earns three golds at state meet

WICHITA — The chase was on.
The only question was whether Humboldt High’s Tanner McNutt, racing in his fourth  and final state race in a span of just over three hours Saturday, would have enough left in the tank.
Thanks to a flawless first three legs of Humboldt’s 4×400-meter relay team served up by Ethan Bartlett, Nick Keazer and Sam Aguirre, McNutt took the baton for his anchor leg just steps in front of Holcomb’s Heath Tucker.
Tucker was a worthy challenger, staying perched just behind McNutt’s right shoulder step for step as both zipped toward the finish line.
But there was no catching the speedy Humboldt senior; not on this day.
McNutt finished off Humboldt’s relay and cemented his place in local track and field history with his third gold medal of the day.
McNutt also repeated as Class 3A 800 meter champion and won the 400-meter dash after claiming the silver medal in that race earlier.
And in winning the 4×400, the Humboldt quartet broke the school record for the second day in a row — they’d also broken it in their preliminary race Friday — finishing in 3 minutes, 25.85 seconds.
“We wanted the school record in the prelims,” Aguirre said. “We just wanted to win today.”
“We happened to get both today,” McNutt agreed. “You always want to go out a winner.”

THE 4X400 championship was more than a year in the making.
Keazer, Aguirre and McNutt talked about how Humboldt coach Eric Carlson put the relay team together shortly before their league track meet in the spring of 2012.
“We went out and won league,” Keazer recalled, then wound up taking fourth in the state last May.
Carlson continued to switch runners throughout the season, which also was plagued by plenty of bad weather that limited practice time.
“We still haven’t run together that much,” Keazer said. “This is a great way to go out, to win a gold in the last track meet I’ll ever run.”
The quartet adjusted their strategy through the afternoon, mainly because of the wind, Aguirre said.
Each of the four was instructed to sprint as fast as they could with the wind at their backs, then try to maintain their position among their competitors as they ran into the headwind.

THE RACE capped an afternoon of high drama at Wichita State University’s Cessna Stadium track, site of the state track meet.
McNutt’s 800-meter victory wasn’t secure until the final turn of the last lap, when he erased a small deficit to Scott Community’s Joseph Meyer and ran in front by the time the pair hit the front straight-away.
Meyer had taken the early lead, and even fended off a McNutt challenge at the end of the first lap.
“I tried to get past him, but he didn’t want to give it up,” McNutt said.
Meyer even extended his lead as they headed down the backstretch — aided by a strong south wind that affected most of the distance runners.
But that helpful wind turned into a hindrance as the runners rounded the curve. Meyer slowed; McNutt did not.
McNutt finished in 1:56.78, just a fraction of a second slower than his school record and about two seconds off the state record for 3A runners.

HE STARTED his busy afternoon by winning the 400 in 49.72 seconds, a full second in front of his nearest pursuer.
Then came the 800 and his second gold.
McNutt abandoned his hopes of winning a fourth gold medal, in the 200-meter dash.
He jogged most of the route, partly in order to conserve energy for the upcoming 4×400.
“That, and I knew I was toast early on,” he laughed. “Those guys were pretty fast.”

AGUIRRE added to his state medal hardware earlier Saturday. After winning three medals at two prior state meets in Class 2A, Aguirre earned the seventh-place medal in the Class 3A 110-meter high hurdles, finishing with a time of 15.78 seconds.

THE MEET brings to a conclusion a track career for some of Humboldt’s most decorated senior athletes, such as Aguirre and McNutt.
“It still hasn’t sunk in,” said McNutt, who will continue his track and field career next year at Pittsburg State University. “It probably won’t for another 20 years, until we have kids in high school.”