PCM boys edge CMB at home meet

MONROE — Tuesday’s co-ed track meet hosted by Prairie City-Monroe was the tale of two teams with different strengths.

PCM’s 2017 roster is loaded with sprinters, a dominant distance runner one of the top discus throwers in Class 2A, while Collins-Maxwell/Baxter continues to score its most points in the shot put, relays and distance events.

In the end, the Mustang sprinters were just a little bit better.

CMB led by 10 points after the field events and held a double-digit lead after 10 events, but the Mustangs rallied behind wins in the 4x100, 4x200 and 4x400 relays.

PCM led by two points late in the meet but pulled away with victories in the final two events. The Mustangs won their second meet since 2011, outscoring the Raiders 135-116. Bondurant-Farrar (91) finished third, while North Polk (89), Knoxville (76) and Pleasantville (69) rounded out the six-team field.

“We won a meet last year, but this one feels really good because it came against a few conference schools and some other schools that are bigger than we are,” PCM coach Collin Harrison said. “I knew it would be close, but I knew that we had a shot, too. The guys just showed a lot of heart and grit tonight.”

PCM’s win was highlighted by nine wins, two runner-up finishes and a pair of third-place tallies. CMB went 1-2 in the shot put, finished second in four events and stayed in front of everyone but PCM because of eight bronze-medal performances.

“Our kids ran well, but hats off to PCM,” CMB coach Josh Russell said. “They were really good tonight. Our margin of error this season is smaller than in past years. We have to figure out how to compete with some of the better teams we will face. We’ll have to nickel and dime it and see what we can do moving forward.”

The Raiders were 1-2 in the shot put for the fourth time this season. CMB failed to gain a bigger advantage after the field events because PCM senior Noah Clark won the discus and fellow senior Luke Greiner was second in the long jump.

CMB stayed in front after 10 events, but the Mustangs pulled away in part because of senior Chris Ellens won the 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs and sprinters Greiner, juniors Noah Henkenius and Noah Anderson and sophomores Preston Van Wyk and Brayton Van Dyke claimed first, second or third in six sprint events.

Ellens had two personal-best runs in the mile and two mile. He won the two mile with a time of 10 minutes, 14.09 seconds, and then finished his mile in 4:53.49.

It was Ellens’ first two wins of the season despite having top-20 times in Class 2A in both events.

“It feels good to win here,” Ellens said. “There are always a lot of fans to cheer us on. I still want to get faster in the middle of the race. It always helps to have someone breathing down your neck, that motivates me to run faster.”

CMB freshman Logan Berg and sophomore Ian Thomson competed against Ellens in both events, finishing third and fourth, respectively, in both events.

Clark won the discus with a toss of 141 feet, 9 inches. The other individual wins came from Henkenius in the 400 and sophomore Cole Dustin in the 110 high hurdles. Henkenius won the 400 with a personal-best time of 54.79 seconds, while Dustin stopped the clock in the high hurdles in a personal-best 16.12 seconds.

Dustin also anchored the shuttle hurdle team to a win. An all-sophomore foursome of Nick Buswell, Nick Dredge, Jarron Trausch and Dustin finished in a personal-best time of 1:06.21.

PCM started its comeback with a win in the 4x200 relay. The foursome of Greiner, Van Dyke, Van Wyk and Anderson won the race in 1:37.56. That same group won the 4x100 relay and put the meet out of reach for CMB with a time of 46.32.

The 4x400 relay included Henkenius, Van Wyk, Van Dyke and Anderson and that group won with a personal-best time of 3:43.23.

“It was nice to see our guys still compete in the 4x400 even though the meet was already over after the 4x100,” Harrison said.

The two second-place finishes came from Greiner in the long jump and Anderson in the 200. Greiner’s best leap covered 19-2, while Anderson’s time of 23.51 in the 200 was .02 seconds off the win.

Van Wyk was third in the 100 with a time of 11.85. Dustin also grabbed a third in the high jump with a leap of 5-4.

“We had some guys step up tonight to help us win this thing,” Harrison said. “We got good performances from guys you don’t normally hear about. Nick Dredge’s fourth in the 400 hurdles was huge, and Blake Lee getting us a single point in the 800 was big, too. Every point matters in a meet like this.”

CMB sophomore Will Clapper got the Raiders’ only win when he tossed the shot put 49-5. Senior Brady Kemp was second with a toss of 47-6 1/2. Clapper’s second-place throw of 133-7 in the discus was a personal-best toss. Kemp also had a personal-record in the discus, hitting 131-7 for fourth place.

“A lot of teams just show up and throw, but we keep our sweats on until we throw, we run and try to get loose, we always take all four throws so you can fix what you are doing right then and there,” Clapper said. “I just think we come more prepared than other throwers.”

Junior Carter Fricke showed his versatility when he took second in the 100 (11.74) and third in the 800 (2:10.76).

The other runner-up finish came in the 4x800 relay. The foursome of juniors Max Van Maanen and Noah Rhoades and seniors Evan Bianchi and Jack Cheville finished in 9:16.55.

Bianchi also was third in the 400 (57.41) and senior Blake Coughenour ran in the 400 hurdles for the first time in his career and placed third with a time of 1:03.72.

Berg caught Thomson in the final 15 meters of both the 1,600 and 3,200 to finish third in both events. Berg’s mile was finished in a personal-best time of 5:06.59 and his two-mile was a personal-best 10:59.29. Thomson’s fourth-place finishes were clocked at a personal-record 5:07.36 and 10:59.34.

The Raiders took advantage of PCM’s sprint medley team getting disqualified to get early points in the meet. CMB finished third in that relay and also claimed the bronze in the distance medley and shuttle hurdle relay.

In the sprint medley, the foursome of senior Zach Schafer, senior Jason Hillgren, Coughenour and junior Braydon Aker finished in a personal-best time of 1:46.39.

The distance medley relay team of senior John Newton, Coughenour, junior Marcus Mitchell and senior Creighton Caple finished in 4:12.13, while the shuttle hurdle relay squad of Mitchell, junior Devin Carson, freshman Brett Livesay and senior Ben Gunderson stopped the clock in 1:08.04.

Both programs are back in action at 4:30 p.m. Friday in Baxter. The Raiders will host that one.