The Mountain Grove boys’ and MV/BT Liberty girls’ track and field teams both claimed South Central Association team titles on Monday in Ava. Mountain Grove won their second title in as many years after going 45 years without a team conference championship.
“I tell you what, it means a lot,” said Panthers coach David Stuckey. “These guys have worked hard. These kids that come out and run track here at Mountain Grove have really worked hard to really establish us as a program and not just an individual sport.”
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Aside from winning the 4×100 and 4×200 meter relays, Mountain Grove found plenty more team points from all over the track and field. Trystan Short and Dustin Jarboe stood out for the Panthers. Short won both the 100 and 200 meter dash, while Jarboe swept the 110 and 300 meter hurdles.
Short – who is recovering from knee surgery after suffering a torn meniscus playing football in the fall – achieved a personal record on the day in the 200 meter dash with a time of 23.09 seconds. His teammate Chance Barbe finished second in the event, giving the Panthers 18 points in the 200 meter dash alone.
“We like to go out and win, but we like to go out and PR too,” Short said. “That’s really what we’re looking for is PR in all of our races and getting better throughout the season.”
The team title is the focus at conference meets, and Short recognizes the significance of repeating as SCA champs.
“Last year was actually our first year [as conference champs] since 1970. So we’re finally starting to come along as a team and win together in conference so hopefully it happens in districts and so forth.”
Mountain Grove’s Tyler Rensch also performed well winning the 400 meter dash (50.51 seconds), edging out Liberty’s prolific distance runner Daylan Quinn. Andy Amos placed second in both the shot put and discus. Amos would have won both events were it not for Liberty’s Cale Cornman, who set an SCA meet record in the discus with a throw of 155’3”. He broke the record held by Liberty’s Kevin Irving (153’9.5”) set in 1988.
Cornman has the discus school record at Liberty (164’9”) and underperformed on Monday by his standards.
“Well I broke the record, but I’m not too happy,” said Cornman. “I had a couple of really bad throws and just went back to the basics. And I got a 155 and cruised… I just need to keep practicing and I’ll get better.”
The aforementioned Daylan Quinn won the 800, 1600 and 3200 meter run and finished second in the 400 meter dash for Liberty. Quinn and Cornman were excellent for the Eagles, but it was the Lady Eagles that claimed the conference title.
Like the Mountain Grove boys, the Liberty girls won both the 4×100 and 4×200 meter relays and had a hurdler, Alleah Marshall, sweep the 100 and 300 meter hurdles. Kassi Craigmyle helped out with a second place finish behind her teammate in the 100 hurdles. Craigmyle also finished second in the long jump behind Houston’s Shelby Cremer. Liberty’s Jordan Owens won the high jump clearing 5’2”.
“We knew we had some strong sprinters and strong relays,” said Liberty coach Darin Acklin. “We’ve been strong in sprints and relays all year… I had some surprises in the hurdles and the jumps today and it all just kind of equaled out. I really didn’t know if we had enough to make a push on the girls’ side today for a conference title. These girls excelled today. We honestly came over here thinking we had a chance for the boys and the girls just really took it.”
The teams and athletes will now begin preparation for the district meets.
“We have to go out and we have to improve upon those times,” said Stuckey. “We’re not happy with where we are and we want to represent south central Missouri at the state meet. We’re going to have to improve upon what we did today. But we’re going to enjoy what we did.”
“I’m going to tell [my team] that I’m proud of them,” Acklin said. “They had something in front of them and they grasped it and they took it. One false start, one person that doesn’t score the way they’re supposed to and we don’t have a chance to do this. They all did exactly what they were supposed to do and even some of them excelled more than the expectations that we thought.”
