By Dana Harding (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
SPRINGFIELD, MO – Wednesday’s Central Ozark Conference West Division championships featured a pair of thrilling finishes.
After the Carthage girls benefitted from a late surge to capture the girls title, Webb City completed a huge comeback to finish with a tie in the boys division with Willard.
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GIRLS DIVISION
The last time the Carthage girls won a conference title, YouTube was busy celebrating its second week of existence.
“In 2005 –before we were in the COC – that was the last time we won conference,” Tigers head coach Jared Cristy said. “We were in the Southwest Conference then.”
The Tigers recorded 173 points in the win, besting runner-up Webb City’s 165.5 effort.
With the 14-team COC splitting its conference championships into two divisions this year, Cristy felt his squad would be right in the mix.
“If we’d had a whole conference with 10 teams before, it would have been harder to win,” Cristy said. “So this gave us an opportunity against some new teams, but it’s pretty much the same teams that were in our conference before. It’s just a smaller conference now with seven teams.”
Carthage’s 173-point effort was made possible by a host of standout performances, including hurdler Elsie Willis.
The sophomore Willis captured both 100- and 300-meter events, setting the tone early for the Tigers’ championship hopes.
Carthage received another significant push in the throwing events.
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Not only did junior Chasity Shaw win both the shot put and discus, the Tigers added a second-place finisher in each event with Karlie Nichols and Olivia Jones.
Nichols also finished fourth in the discus.
“We had a senior discus thrower, Karlie Nichols, who hasn’t thrown disc much all year,” Cristy said. “She stepped up and got fourth today and got a PR. All of our throwers did fantastic. They all three were in the top five in each of the throws. So that was fantastic for us. That’s a lot of points right there.”
Sophomore triple jumper London Shepherd added a fifth first-place finish to give Carthage a late push towards the top of the standings heading into the final events.
“We had three sections we perform the most,” Cristy said. “Hurdles and throws were our top pointers, and jumps were our next high pointer. Throws have been kind of our leading point getter all year, and then hurdles as well. We’ve had one girl in hurdles (Willis) that has gone off really well the last two weeks, improving our time drastically, and our jumps did very good today as well. So those kind of carried us point wise, and then our distance girls stepped up and ran more than they’ve had to do before to kind of offset Webb City’s point total, which is what really helped us.”
BOYS DIVISION
For most of the afternoon, the West Division boys challenge looked to be Willard’s to lose.
The Tigers surged to an early lead, thanks to a surprise high jump victory from freshman Tre Green.
WIllard head coach Bret Lovekamp praised his high jumper for battling through injury.
“My freshman – he’s been injured,” Lovekamp said of Green. “So, he tried to give it a go in high jump and actually finished first. But, after that, we decided to keep him out, because we want to protect him for districts.”
The Tigers also received 24 points from a 110 hurdles sweep by sophomore Hayden Hall, senior William Ndiba and junior Jonathan Huskisson.
Despite the early lead, Lovekamp knew things could get close in a hurry, especially after some unfortunate mishaps. Willard’s 4×100 team was disqualified.
“Unfortunately, our 4×100 got DQ’d for a silly reason, but we kept fighting,” Lovekamp said. “It just came down to the end. When we got down to the 200, we were starting to watch Webb, because we knew they were very strong with pole vault and some of their field events.”
CLICK HERE FOR FIELD EVENT PHOTOS
Following an early win in the 4×800 from Noah Lankard, James Dalrymple, Stern Sluder, James Baldassaro, Webb City was able to keep within striking distance throughout the afternoon.
A late push from a 1-2 shot put finish (Louden Bolinger, Eric Lathan) and first-place finish in the 3200 (Andrew Dawson) placed the Cardinals in second place by only the thinnest of margins heading into the final event.
137 – 136 … one single point.
With the 4×400 relay set to determine the meet’s outcome, Webb City capitalized on the new opportunity.
The Cardinals finished in third place, a mere five meters ahead of fourth-place finisher Willard – and secured the championship tie.
Prior to the race, Webb City head coach Dustin Miller had a very simple message for his squad.
“I told them we were down by one and we were projected to be third,” Miller said. “Willard was projected to be fourth, so if we get second, we win it outright. If we get third and they get fourth, we tie. And then if they beat us, it’s over. We’re going to go shake their hands at the end of the meet like grown men and cry on the way home.”
For Miller, a tie wasn’t an ideal scenario; however, considering how much ground his team had to make up in the process, he was pleased with the result.
“We lost some points early, and we thought it was over,” Miller said. “And then Willard had some rough events and kind of opened the door for us. We had some big events late in the meet, and our guys clawed their way back in. So, I’m really proud of the way our guys competed today.”
