CARTHAGE, Mo. — The Neosho Wildcats boys track and field team made history for the second meet in a row.
On May 4, at Ozark High School, the Neosho boys won their first Central Ozark Conference team title in program history.
On Saturday, trailing Nixa entering the final event of the 4×400, Neosho’s relay of freshman William Ebbinghaus, sophomore Isaiah Keezer, senior Isaiah Green and junior Izaiah Hill rallied past the field down the back stretch with a winning time of 3 minutes and 26 seconds and secured the program’s first district track title since 1979.
Neosho won with 127 points and Nixa finished second with 121. Joplin was third with 107, Kickapoo fourth at 97, Ozark fifth at 68, Republic sixth at 64, Branson seventh at 59, Carthage eighth at 58 and Parkview ninth at 38.
“Super exciting,” Neosho boys coach Randy Mustain said. “We had a similar situation last week at the conference championship, which we won for the first time in program history being in the COC. We were down one point to Webb City, and we came in and competed and the kids just had an awesome night PR’d in the 4×4 and came back tonight. …
“We’re tired. You know, some of those guys ran four or five events tonight and came back and battled hard and pulled through for us. I’m super proud of them. To be able to come back and win that event to cap it off tonight, there’s nothing more sweet.”
The excitement around the final event could be felt and heard around Carthage’s David Haffner Stadium, especially as the anchor legs cranked up their engines and hit their accelerators for that final push toward the finish line.
The excitement continued for Neosho after the race, as they celebrated like it was 1979, culminating in Mustain being surrounded and given the customary Gatorade shower.
“We’ve got a great group of guys on the 4×4,” Mustain said. “We’re pretty young there at the start of the race. We start off with a sophomore and a freshman who are coming on strong and training well for us. Then, you roll into a senior (Green). We use the term ‘dog’ in our program, and he’s a dog. He just absolutely goes after it and battles, and he did everything he could to give Izaiah a chance. I knew he could do that. We were super excited for him.
“I told Izaiah before the race, Izaiah Hill, our anchor leg, I said, I wouldn’t want it in anybody else’s hands. I’m super proud of him, and he handled himself very well.”
Neosho senior Tyrese Hill won the 100 in 10.81 and the 200 in 22.46, while Izaiah Hill won the 400 in 49.99.
The 4×200 of Tyrese Hill, Izaiah Hill, Keezer, and Tyrone Harris finished third in 1:31 and the 4×100 of Brock Franklin, Tyrese Hill, Jared Siler, and Harris placed fourth in 43.53.
Green won the triple jump at 44 feet and 11 inches and Siler placed fourth at 42-9.75. Green and Siler finished third and fourth in the long jump at 21-8.75 and 21-7.25 respectively, while Siler placed fourth in the high jump at 6-2.75.
Collyn Kivett won the javelin with a toss of 164-1 and Carter Baslee finished third in the discus with a mark of 150-6.
Neosho qualified in all these events for next Saturday’s Class 5 Sectional 3 meet hosted by Parkview, and the top four sectional finishers advance to the state meet the last weekend in May in Jefferson City.
“Those guys, they have known that they can do something special from the beginning,” Mustain said. “We’ve continued to preach that. We started this season off with a plywood state plaque we cut out and we put ‘Victory takes payment in advance’ in front of that and on the back, we put every team we were going to face at conference and districts. We said that this is what we want, and this is what our program is striving for.
“It’s the first time in 44 years the Neosho boys track and field program has won a district title. We’re proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish.
“This is Year Six for me as the head coach of this program. We’ve seen it grow every year, and that’s not a testament to me, it’s a testament to the kids coming into the weight room. Coach (Brandon) Taute does a great job with them in the weight room. Just having him in there driving those kids helps a lot.
“I have awesome assistant coaches that … at the beginning of the year, we were looking at districts and we were scheduled to get zero points in the throws. We came out today and I think we scored 22 points in the throws. I’m extremely proud of our kids there. All of our coaches do a great job, they’ve got our kids bought in, we’re a family, we love each other, they know that, and they’ll go to battle for each other all the time.”
Mustain’s assistants are Drew Harmon, Frank Hebert, Desmond Williams, and Josh Yarnell.
CARTHAGE HIGHLIGHTS
The host Carthage Tigers finished eighth Saturday in the overall standings and qualified for sectionals in six different events.
Miguel Solano won the 800 in 1:58.88, just .07 ahead of Joplin’s Hobbs Campbell, and Daryl Martin finished third in both the 110 hurdles in 15.73 and the 300 hurdles in 40.66.
The 4×800 of Trey Nye, Solano, Caleb Fewin, and Michael Lanyon finished third in 8:19 and the 4×400 of Braxton McBride, Solano, Nye, and Joseph Childs also finished third in 3:27.
Trent Yates placed second in the triple jump at 43-1.5 and Micah Lindsey also finished second in the shot put at 54-7.5.
“I think we came out and competed,” Carthage boys coach Logan Wilson said. “At the very start of the day I told them, ‘Hey, go get another PR and we’ll see how we fall.’ That’s what we did. We got PRs across the board, and a couple of our teams were lucky to be fast enough to move on. We had a shot putter go through, we had a triple jumper go through, and our hurdler got through at 110 and 300. We told them at the beginning of the year to come out and get better every day and that’s exactly what they did.”
District 6 qualifiers and District 5 qualifiers from schools Camdenton, Capital City, Eureka, Glendale, Lafayette (Wildwood), Lebanon, Northwest (Cedar Hill), Springfield Central, Waynesville, and Willard meet at sectionals.
“It’s hard,” Wilson said. “When you’re going to a Class 5 sectional, it’s hard. You’ve got kids that are top ranked in the state in every event. It’s going to be tough, but we’re going to go there with the same mentality. We’re going to compete, and where the chips fall is where they’re going to fall. We’ve got two guys ranked at the top of sectionals right now, so we like our odds. At the end of the day, we just want a chance to compete, and we earned that today.”
JOPLIN HIGHLIGHTS
The Joplin Eagles finished third on the boys side Saturday and qualified in 11 events for sectionals at Parkview.
Senior distance standout Hobbs Campbell won the 1600 in 4:18 and finished second in the 800 in 1:58 and the 3200 in 9:48, while Orion Norris raced to fourth in the 200 in 23.03.
The 4×100 of Quinton Renfro, Tayshaun Palmer, Norris, and Davin Thomas won in 42.95 and the 4×200 of Palmer, Aiden Scourten, Norris, and Davin Thomas finished second in 1:31.
Renfro took second in the long jump with a leap of 21-10, freshman high jumper Cordell Washington finished third at 6-3.5, freshman Neil Barstow’s heave of 146-10 earned him fourth in the discus (three of the four sectional qualifiers in the discus are freshmen), Dontrell Holt placed fourth in the shot put at 49-6.5, and Drew VanGilder also placed fourth in the javelin at 152-7.
GIRLS HIGHLIGHTS
On the girls side, the Joplin Eagles finished fifth with 83 points and qualified in nine events for sectionals next Saturday at Parkview.
Joplin freshman Brylee Strickland especially proved to be fleet of foot Saturday, qualifying for sectionals in three individual sprinting events and one sprint relay.
Strickland sprinted to second in the 100 in 12.53, won the 200 in 26.30, and finished third in the 400 in 1:01.
Strickland also ran the anchor leg on the second place 4×100 relay with their 49.52 time. Sophomore sprinters Phia Vogel and Abigayle Lowery, along with junior Abigail Eckert, joined Strickland on the relay.
Junior hurdler Kiki Thom won a district title in the 300 hurdles in 47.48, Vogel placed fourth in the 100 in 12.81, and Lowery also placed fourth in the 200 in 26.79.
Maria Loum finished third in the pole vault at 10-0 and Kendall Nyarango also finished third in the long jump at 17-4.75.
The host Carthage Tigers tallied 64 points to finish sixth and qualified in five events for sectionals.
Carthage senior Joey Hettinger won a district title with a high clearance of 5-2.25 in the high jump, and she was the lone athlete in her event to clear 5-0 on Saturday.
Meanwhile, freshman Chasity Straw finished second in the discus with a heave of 104-9 and Lilly Holmes and Karlie Nichols finished second and third in the shot at 35-0.25 and 34-9.5.
Lexa Youngblood placed fourth in the 400 in 1:03 and the 4×400 of Aven Willis, Evelyn Carrol, Maggie Boyd, and Youngblood also placed fourth in 4:16.
The Neosho Wildcats totaled 26.5 points to take ninth in the standings and qualified in one event for sectionals, as freshman Jazmyn Washington finished second in the 100 hurdles in 16.01.
