Hansen, Gholson strike gold at Cardinal Invite

Rain, hail, thunder and lightning interrupted the competition in Thursday’s 2016 Newton High Cardinal Invitational track meet. It was the first time the Cardinal boys were competing on their home track and field areas this spring.

The Cardinals’ two event champions had different weather to compete in. Connor Gholson jumped into the sand pit during the long jump event when it was sunny, while Landon Hansen had to work in a damp throwing ring for the shot put.

Gholson hit the winning distance of 19 feet, 7 1/2 inches during the preliminary jumps. He went into the long jump finals in first place, made his first jump in the finals and elected not to jump again. After the second-place jumper had his final jump, Gholson scratched because he had aggravated a nagging knee injury.

Just as the boys were to begin warming up for the shot put, the storm swept through. Following a 30-minute weather delay, the boys had to sweep out and wipe down the throwing ring throughout the shot put event.

Hanson delivered on his second throw in the preliminaries with a distance of 44-1. He sat in first place going into the finals and stayed there. Caden Manning was also throwing in the finals, but no official result was recorded for him.

“I’m really not sure what happened with Caden,” Newton head coach Tanner Clute said. “I was really upset the starter didn’t stop the boys’ 100-meter dash when it started hailing. That’s just unsafe for the kids.”

Clute said Newton athletic director Scott Garvis was running over to try and get the starter to stop. He said it was disappointing for the other schools as well as Newton.

“This was a last chance Drake (Relays) meet. There’s no reason to start a race in those conditions. The weather has not been our friend this spring. It’s been above average for sure, we just seem to be catching the bad nights weather-wise.”

There were seven teams competing in Thursday’s meet including two squads from Ames. Ames Black won the team title with 156 points and Ames Orange was second with 140 points. Ballard took third with 85.5 points.

Newton finished fourth with 78 points followed by Perry with 75 points, Marshalltown with 71.5 points and Oskaloosa with 69 points.

Brennen Dodd was in a close finish in the 400-meter dash. Dodd ended up second in 52.49 seconds behind Lee Grimm of Ames Black (52.30) and in front of Kaleb Odden of Ballard (52.63). Newton’s Jack Callaghan placed fifth in 53.51.

Matthew Karsten ran third in the 200 meters in 23.75 seconds and was sixth in the 100 meters in 11.70 seconds. Karsten and Callaghan combined with Clayton Baltsberger and Josh Miravalles for fourth in the 4x100 relay race in 46.56.

Jaron Roush placed fifth in the 110-meter high hurdles in 17.18 seconds, and Callaghan took seventh in the 400 hurdles in 1 minute, 2.31 seconds. Roush, Josh Miller, Keith Steinbach and Coltin Whitten turned in a fifth-place time of 1:08.26 in the 4x100 shuttle hurdle relay race.

Noah Sander came in fourth in the 3,200-meter race in 11:02.89 and Adam Hunter placed sixth in 11:51.70. Hunter took eighth in the 1,600 in 5:29.56. Sander placed sixth in the 800 in 2:14.73 and Matt Moran was ninth in 2:20.14.

In the discus, Jace Lukefahr finished fourth with a throw of 130-9 and Alex Miller was ninth at 117-4. According to the official results, Jaise Gulling was eighth in the shot put at 36-6 1/2.

Newton competes at 5 p.m. Thursday at Grinnell.

Contact Jocelyn Sheets at
641-792-3121 ext. 6535 or jsheets@newtondailynews.com