East Newton Girls Snap 31-Year Big 8 Track Championship Drought, Lamar Boys Win 6th-Straight Title

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By Matt Turer — mturer@ky3.com
@MattTurer

Cassville, Mo. — The last time East Newton girl’s track and field celebrated a Big 8 conference title, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was still a month away from it’s release date.

Turns out, life moves pretty fast. So do these Lady Patriots. If you don’t look around once in a mile, you could miss them.

Using a detailed pre-meet race strategy and taking advantage of dominance in the sprint and long-distance events, East Newton erased 31 years of history to hoist the Big 8 girls crown. Lamar’s boys handily won the boys title.

“They’re pretty excited,” East Newton head coach Jake Holt said. “They haven’t really been close in those 31 years. I’m happy for them. They’re good kids. They deserve it. It’s a good feeling, it really is.”

East Newton all but secured the title in the 3,200-meter run with Kinsey Sorrell finishing first (12:55.65) and Kaylee Rader third. That win was one of three for Sorrell Thursday, who also won the 1,600-meter and 800-meter runs.

“The whole entire time that [championship drought] has been in my mind,” Sorrell said.” We’re trying to beat Monett so we’ve got to get all the points that we can.”

CLICK HERE FOR FULL BIG 8 MEET RESULTS
CLICK HERE FOR BIG 8 MEET TRACK EVENTS PHOTOS
CLICK HERE FOR BIG 8 MEET FIELD EVENTS PHOTOS

Monett and East Newton swapped team point leads multiple times throughout the meet, but the Patriots came away with a 131-125 advantage despite just two top-three finishes in seven field events.

“You know, in our mind we thought we had a good chance to win, but we knew Monett was going to be really really tough,” Holt said of a Monett group mostly made up of freshmen and sophomores.

“They have a good group of young girls that are really talented, and they killed us earlier in the year. I told their coach after that meet, ‘Well I know who’s going to win the Big 8,’ and I really meant it, because they were nails. But without Carl Junction in the fold this year, that really changed things a lot. That changed the dynamic of how we were going to approach it.”

Holt and the rest of East Newton’s coaching staff could be seen huddling around clipboards after every event, watching to see if their strategy was going to play out.

The Patriots placed in the top three finishers of 10 of 12 track events, winning five and finishing with two girls in the top three in three.

“I hate to admit this but I spent a lot of time going back and forth looking at results from everywhere,” Holt said. “Looking at Mile Split. Looking at TRXC. Seeing best results, talking to the kids about what they thought they could do, what I thought they could do. We put some kids in events tonight they hadn’t run all season.”

And it paid off. Kendra Hickman placed second in the 1,600 after not running the mile all season. That finished pushed Monett runners Alyssa Williams and Maddison Coones to third and fourth. The same was true in the 800 and 3,200, where Jaylen Hayward finished second and Kaylee Rader third after the first hadn’t run the event and the second hadn’t run the event that well all season.

Kaitlyn Massey was another difference-maker for East Newton. The Seneca transfer and defending Big 8 100- and 400-meter dash champion placed second in the 100, first in the 400 and third in the 200.

“Massey has been huge,” Holt said. “She’s got amazing talent and good work ethic.”

Six In A Row For Lamar’s Boys

On the boys side, Lamar once again left as boys champions. The Tigers claimed their sixth consecutive Big 8 championship after placing first, second, or first and second in every single event.

“We had a pretty good meet,” Lamar head coach Randy Baldridge said. “We did well. We did what we were supposed to do, and that’s what we wanted to stress. We needed to go out and take care of business, and I think we did.”

Lamar took home first place in every track event except the 400-meter and 200-meter dashes, finishing second in each.

First-place finishers for the Tigers included Jesse Compton in the 3,200 (10:16.44) and 1,600 (4:52.34), Kolin Overstreet in the 800 (2:04.62), Trey Mooney in the 300-meter hurdles (41.15) and 100-meter hurdles (14.76), the 4×100-meter relay team (43.47), the 4×200 relay team (1:32.90), the 4×800 relay team (8:33.80), Cooper Lucas in the discus (150-01), Matthew Whyman in the long jump (20-08.00), Mooney in the high jump (6-06.00), and Luke Hardman in the 100-meter dash (10.67).

“We like being well-rounded,” Baldridge said. “We want it to seem like a team. Not a team of distance runners or a team of sprinters or a team of throwers. We’ve been fortunate to have a lot of good athletes that we can put in a lot of different events.”

Hardman’s 100-meter dash time was just .23 seconds off Reeds Spring’s Korey Robinette’s area-best 10.44, a good sign with Hardman battling an injury earlier this season and battling temperatures in the low 50s on Thursday.

“Whenever you’re dealing with tight muscles or strained muscles on a colder day, you’re always concerned,” Baldridge said. “But he warmed up well and did what he needed to do and he seems to be doing well.”

Lamar’s 231 points were well ahead of second-place Monett’s 94.

Beem Breaks 10-Year Old School Vault Record

Lamar’s girls finished third Thursday but went home with a new school record after sophomore pole vaulter Coti Beem cleared 10 feet at 10-02.00.

“My goal today was 11 feet. But 10-02 is not all that bad,” Beem said. “It’s really good and a PR. I vaulted really well at practice the other day and fixed a few things. It’s pretty exciting to have a lot of room to grow and improve.”

Beem broke a 10-year old record previously held by the daughter of Lamar pole vaulting coach Toby Luce.

“It’s kind of been a lovely thing because my daughter held the school record for a long time and I got to coach her to break my daughter’s record,” Luce said. “Last year, she jumped really well as a freshman and she’s just progressed since then. This year we’ve been struggling to find the right pole and I think we finally found it.”

Individual Awards:

Girls Coach of the Year: Jake Holt – East Newton
Boys Coach of the Year: Rodney Baldridge- Lamar

Athlete of the Year Boys: Trey Mooney- Lamar Sr
Athlete of the Year Girls: Kinsey Sorrell- East Newton Jr

CLICK HERE FOR FULL BIG 8 MEET RESULTS
CLICK HERE FOR BIG 8 MEET TRACK EVENTS PHOTOS
CLICK HERE FOR BIG 8 MEET FIELD EVENTS PHOTOS

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