The Nixa boys’ and girls’ track and field teams led the way in Saturday’s Class 5, District 5 meet. For the Lady Eagles, it marks their first district championship in 40 years and the first ever as a Class 5 program.
The feat comes a week after the girls won their conference competition, also for the first time in school history.
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“This has kind of been two weeks in a row of some firsts for us,” said Nixa girls coach Jim Middleton. “The COC-Large a week ago we won and it came down to the very last race for us to win conference. And they had never won conference before in the large COC. So now this week we have the first time for districts and the first time in Class 5 period.”
Both teams ran away (pardon the pun) with the team competition. The girls’ team finished with 137 points, beating the second-place team Waynesville by 32 points. Waynesville scored 105 points followed by Joplin with 104. The Nixa boys scored a whopping 168 and secured the team title early in the meet. Kickapoo (116), Joplin (105) and Parkview (94) proceeded Nixa.
Distance runner Kaitlyn Jones stood out for the Lady Eagles, winning the 1600 meter run (5:25.40) and 3200 meter run (11:51.07), as well as anchoring the second-place 4×800 relay team (10:18.21).
“Well, I think the coaches made a good decision in changing up the order of our 4×8,” said the junior Jones. “I ran the final leg today and I’ve never ran the final leg before, but that was a really nice way to be able to bring it in for the team.”
After qualifying for sectionals in three events on Saturday, she’ll have three chances to qualify for state – something she has never done before.
“Just to be able to qualify and to have the opportunity to run at Jeff City would be amazing,” she said. “I hope that we can get there and especially with the 4×8 relay. That would make it better because last year we got our team PR for our school record last year at sectionals, so if we could do that again it would be really cool.”
The girls also won the 4×100 and 4×200 meter relays.
The Nixa boys racked up as many points as they did by performing very well in sprints, distance runs, throwing events and the pole vault.
Junior Benjamin Howard qualified for sectionals in three events. He ran the best 100 meter dash with a time of 11.03 seconds. In the preliminary round, Howard finished the event in just 10.92 seconds, a personal best.
“The wind was pushing me,” said Howard, “so I felt like I could run a lot faster. It was a good day to PR.”
Howard also qualified in the 200 meter dash (fourth place with a mark of 23.29) and ran in the 4×100 (second place at 43.64, just .36 seconds behind Joplin’s relay team). Like his teammate Jones, Howard qualified for sectionals in three events and has never made it to state.
“I want to be able to make it to state in the 200 and the 100, and the 4×1 too,” he said. “So we’ll see how that goes… I just want to try my hardest and see what I can get and then try to beat that next week. Just try to keep improving all the way up to state.”
Christian “Blake” Procell, a freshman, won the open 800 meter run and participated in the 4×800. That relay team won with a time of 8:20.38.
“I’m actually very shocked at what I’ve done this year,” said Procell. “I was aiming for somewhere around 2:05-ish [in the 800 meter run] and I never really saw myself breaking a sub-2 [minutes] and so I’ve kind of shocked myself throughout the year. And making state would be everything.”
Joseph Nickell won the pole vault event for Nixa, jumping 14’6”. Case Gilliam won the discus throw (144’5”) and came in fourth in the shot put (45’1.5”). Mason Stripp finished second in the shot with a throw of 46’3.25” topped only by Lebanon’s John Berry who threw 48’1.75”.
“Number one, we’re just going to take a moment to celebrate this,” said Nixa boys coach Lance Brumley. “It’s not every day that you get to win a district and qualify as many as we have. I’ve been fortunate to be here a long time, and there was a time when we took two kids to sectionals. And now I think we’re going to qualify in fourteen events or so. So we’re going to take a little bit to celebrate and we’re going to get back to work and fine-tune everything that needs to be put together and see if we can’t qualify several at state.”
There were several other standout athletes at the district meet on Saturday, highlighted by Waynesville all-stater Ariel Okorie.
Okorie swept her four events; 100 meter hurdles (14.67 seconds), 300 meter hurdles (46.23), high jump (5’3”) and long jump (17’3”). Okorie finished in the top ten in every event last year at state, including runner-up in the long jump. She will compete in the heptathlon as a scholarship athlete at Kansas State next year.
Springfield Central sprinter Jaslyn Williams won the 100 meter dash (12.47 seconds) and 200 meter dash (25.79). She finished second behind only Okorie in the long jump with a leap of 16’8.75”.
Parkview’s Marcus Walton won the high jump and the long jump on Saturday. He also runs on the 4×100 and 4×200 relay teams. His 4×200 team finished second behind Joplin with a time of 1:31.32.
Walton, a junior, has a PR of 6’10” on the high jump, but managed a mere 6’2” at the district meet which was still good for first place.
“I’m a 6’10” high jumper,” said Walton. “It’s just with the other class [Class 1 sectional meet] coming after us, I just had to scratch it because I had to go to long jump. I’m feeling pretty confident about sectionals coming up and I think I’ll be able to place high and score some points for our team in long and high jump and the 4×2 hopefully.”
For these qualifiers, they’ll move on to compete in their Class 5 sectional meet next weekend with a chance to go to the state championship meet in Jefferson City. Nixa will build upon Saturday’s success.
“We came here today to win and they’ve met the goal,” said Middleton, “and we have a lot of people to move on to sectionals. So we’ll celebrate this and we’ll figure out the best way to get them in the top four next weekend so they can move on to state.”
