MARENGO – The Mount Gilead Indians have never lost a KMAC track & field championship, boys or girls.
To be fair, the conference is only two years old – but that didn’t make Friday’s sweep any less sweet for Lauren Huelsman’s club, which howled into the night sky while hoisting its third and fourth KMAC title trophies.
“I mean, the kids all do it for each other,” Huelsman said afterwards, when asked how her program maintains greatness from year-to-year. “The kids are really disciplined, they understand that the process is part of improvement. We’re not going out, trying to necessarily win every meet. We’re just trying to get better and it kind of happens that you win when you try to do those things.”
The Indians did it in emphatic fashion, too, just as they did last year. They won the boys meet with 179 points, 72 more than second-place Northmor, and won the girls meet with 157 points, 50 more than runner-up Centerburg. Last year, Mount Gilead held a 44-point advantage in the boys race and a 76-point advantage in the girls race.
“I mean, we just kind of played this like another difficult meet,” Huelsman said. “We try to make sure we set up kids to be successful individually, but also for our team. So we had some kids have a tough lineup, four-eventing kids we haven’t four-evented in a while. I’m really proud of their efforts, everybody just came in and competed really well.”
One of Mount Gilead’s star performers this week was sophomore Allison Johnson, who competed in four events – and won all four of them. The phenom won pole vault easily on Tuesday, recording a leap of 9’6”. On Friday, she dusted the competition in the 100-meter hurdles (15.66), then turned around and won the 400-meter dash (58.40) and the 800-meter dash (2:24).
Standing near the finish line after the 800, her final race of the day, an exhausted Johnson said the last two races went exactly as planned.
“We had a goal to kind of go all-out in the 400 and see what I could do, and I ended up running a school record. So I’m happy about that,” she said. “And then after that, my coach just kind of said, ‘Do whatever you can to win the 800.’ So I just went out with the pack and then took off after the last 400.”
On the boys side, the Indians saw first-place finishes in the 4×800-meter relay, 110-meter hurdles, 400-meter dash, 300-meter hurdles, 4×400-meter relay team, shot put, discus throw and wheelchair shot put. The girls won the 100-meter hurdles, 100-meter dash, 400-meter dash, 800-meter run, 200-meter dash, pole vault, high jump and discus throw.
It was an all-around dominant week for Mount Gilead, and Johnson said she was thrilled with her team’s effort.
“I’m very proud, and our team’s doing great this year,” she said. “I’m really proud of everyone.”
Record day for several area athletes
While the team titles went to Mount Gilead on Friday, several local competitors posted impressive individual finishes.
Fredericktown’s Paden Spencer and Connor Riley both earned gold in the mile and two-mile, respectively.
Riley set a personal record with a time of 9:52; previously, he’d never cracked the 10-minute mark. Riley stuck with the race’s top four for the first six laps, then he and Cardington’s Mason White began to break away. Midway through the last lap, White had established a sizeable lead – but Riley didn’t give up.
“I saw Mason started to pull away and in my head I was like, I didn’t really know the time and I don’t know what I was running, but I saw the opportunity of being the KMAC champion in the 3,200 and I decided to take advantage of that and see if I could get it,” Riley explained afterwards.
“And once I crossed that 150, I saw that he was starting to die. He started to fall back a little bit and then I took advantage of that and used him to launch me when I hit that 100.”
Riley’s late burst – which he and coach Bob Geiger credited to the extra day off runners received when Thursday’s session was moved to Friday, due to weather concerns – propelled him to the finish line in record time.
Afterwards, the senior immediately ran over to hug his family, which had just watched his last high school conference race. He teared up when reflecting upon his last four years as a Freddie, and what it meant to run his best race on Friday.
“This just shows that, like, all the hard work I put into it is finally starting to pay off and everything” said Riley, who still has state aspirations in the two-mile. “It’s just something I’ve wanted for a long time and I finally got it.”
Spencer showed similar grit in the one-mile, although he said Friday’s race was more tactical than anything. He lurked behind Mount Gilead’s Casey White and East Knox’s Dawson Moreland for three laps before blazing past the competition on the home stretch.
“That was no joke of a race, the kids that were in it,” Spencer said afterwards. “So I think today was mostly more of a tactical race, to try to sit behind who you think your biggest targets are and let other people do the work, and then obviously air it out in the last leg, the last lap, and really just kind of prove what I’m here to do.”
Spencer admitted that his sights are set on the postseason, and while winning the conference crown is a fine local achievement, the next few weeks will truly test his mettle.
“I’m not really trying to get hung up too much on winning the conference meets or the Spek, because while it’s nice local competition, it’s still not quite the standard of where you need to look for to compete at the state level,” Spencer said. “So it’s nice to win these, but it’s not the end goal, so you’ve just gotta keep working past it.”
As one might expect, Highland’s Brock Veley and Jack Weaver took home trophies in the 100 and 200-meter races on Friday.
Veley edged Weaver in the 100-meter by .08 seconds, while Weaver beat Veley in the 200-meter by .40 seconds. The two also led Highland’s 4×200-meter and 4×100-meter relay teams to first-place finishes on Friday as well.
It was Veley’s final KMAC meet, and the senior said he felt proud to go out on top.
“It feels exciting, competing with some of your best friends that you’ve competed with all throughout high school,” Veley said. “I mean, it’s kind of sad moving on. But I’m excited and proud, the mark I left for people like Jack and the kids coming up, to keep pushing and working hard.”
Veley and Weaver have traded places in the 100 and 200 all year, and now they’ll get to test their speed against some of the region’s best in the weeks ahead. What’s the end-goal for the KMAC’s quickest 1-2 punch?
“State, definitely,” Weaver said confidently.
“Just go as far as we can,” the older Veley quipped, cracking a laugh. “Give it our best and have fun while doing it, too.”
Centerburg’s MaKenna Hennell and Sarah Thatcher took home gold Friday as well, in the mile and two-mile, respectively.
Hennell, a sophomore, said she had thought about dropping the event earlier this season. Even though the mile had been her main event since seventh grade, she’d begun to feel burnt out.
When her coach told her to stick with the race coming into Friday’s meet, she prayed it would be worthwhile.
“Before the race, I was really praying. I was like, ‘God, if this is something you want me to keep doing then can you just help me through this race?’” Hennell said. “And one of the things I’ve learned in running for four or five years is the ways that God teaches us – it’s not always by winning, a lot of times it’s by losing and just learning to trust him with that.”
Hennell ended up running one of her strongest races of the season – a blistering 5:40, just four seconds off her PR. She led the entire way, eventually stretching things out in the final lap to beat second-place Emily Hanft (Mount Gilead) by four seconds.
Despite entering the race with the third-fastest time, Hennell said she remained optimistic and stuck to the game plan.
“Before I came today, I was like, ‘You know, I wonder what it would be like to get the KMAC conference championship in the hurdles and the mile?’” Hennell said afterwards. “I was like, ‘I’ll just see if I can get top five.’ So I was honestly really surprised. I just felt really good.”
Thatcher’s victory in the two-mile carried a different storyline. The senior placed second in the event last year with a time of 12:20, but this year she’s struggled with injuries. She was simply trying to improve her time at Friday’s race, but she ended up dusting the competition. She took first place by 16 seconds.
“I was just trying to start hard and finish hard, like my coach always says. I wasn’t really thinking about time really, but I was just trying to get hopefully a PR from last week,” Thatcher explained. “But I was just trying to stay consistent and start fast, end fast.”
The senior did just that, as she held a comfortable half-lap lead down the stretch. While she ran a 12:23 – not quite where she was at this time last year – Thatcher hopes to use Friday’s win as momentum moving forward.
“I’m just hoping to kind of drop some time and just kind of get my feet back under me, and have a more successful season this year,” Thatcher said. “So hopefully I can make it another two weeks, but to make it to state again would be really cool.”
In the girls 300-meter hurdles, the KMAC saw the first chapter of what could be a rivalry for years to come.
East Knox sophomore Emily Opfer and Danville freshman Brooklyn Hess tore down the home stretch neck-and-neck, trading first and second with each hurdle, before Opfer eventually pulled away and won with a time of 50.48, twelve-one-hundredths of a second faster than her cross-town counterpart.
Opfer said she expected to compete with Hess coming into the race, as Hess edged Opfer in prelims on Tuesday.
“I was excited because I have some competition,” Opfer said with a smile.
Opfer said the key to winning the 300-meter hurdles is aggressiveness – a trait she exhibited well on Friday. She conquered each hurdle with the focus of a champion.
“It means a lot, all the hard work I’ve put in,” Opfer said of the end result. “It finally gets to pay off and people notice.”
Does Opfer think she and Hess will become 300-meter rivals over the next two years? At this rate, she said, it’s possible. They’ve already competed against each other at several other meets, and most have been just as close as this year’s KMAC championship.
Plus, it’s Danville-East Knox. How could it not become a rivalry?
“It’s definitely possible if she keeps up the hard work and I do, too,” Opfer said. “I think it’ll be a good competition in the future.”
TEAM RESULTS:
Girls: 1. Mount Gilead (157); 2. Centerburg (107); 3. Fredericktown (90); 4. Northmor (89); 5. Highland (87); 6. East Knox (62); 7. Danville (45); 8. Cardington-Lincoln (1).
Boys: 1. Mount Gilead (179); 2. Northmor (107); 3. East Knox (96); 4. Highland (92); 5. Fredericktown (85); 6. Centerburg (53); 7. Danville (12); 8. Cardington-Lincoln (11).
To see the full list of KMAC champions, click here.
