Brandon Childs knows he probably could have jumped a little higher.
His knees told him otherwise.
Childs already had won the high jump at Friday’s EHS Relays track and field invitational, clearing the bar at a personal-best 6 feet, 2 inches on his third and final attempt to claim the win over Shawnee Heights’ Dylon Stovall, who missed his three jumps at the height. After clearing the winning height, however, Childs asked the bar to be raised another 2 inches.
Emporia High's Brandon Childs clears a high jump of 6 feet, 2 inches Friday evening at Welch Stadium. Childs won the high jump and the triple jump.
Though he came close on his second try, Childs missed all three attempts at the new height, later saying that his body just wouldn’t let him go any higher.
“My knees are hurting a little bit. I should have had it though,” he said. “It feels real good to get 6-2 though, especially this early in the season. Now I can start trying to improve on it.”
Childs’ victory in the high jump was the first of two titles on the day for the junior, who also claimed the triple jump victory with a personal-best leap of 45 feet. His triple jump distance was just 3 3/4 inches shy of the school record.
In just two events, Childs accounted for 20 of the Emporia boys team’s 104 points, helping the Spartans to the team title over Shawnee Heights (89 points) in the rain-shortened meet. The Emporia High girls dominated before rain and lightening forced the meet to end early, as the Lady Spartans amassed 135 points in just 13 events to win the team title over Wichita Independent by 75 points.
“I liked the level of competition we had here,” EHS coach Randy Wells said. “It was turning into a good meet and our kids were competing hard for us. They’re doing a good job; they’re coming along.”
The EHS boys did most of their damage in the field events. Caydrick Bloomquist won the pole vault in a field made up of three Emporia competitors, clearing the bar at 12-6.
Billy Malone had one of the more impressive outings in just his second meet. The senior set personal bests by two feet in both the long jump (20-10 1/4) and the triple jump (40-10) to finish second and fourth, respectively.
Emporia High's Billy Malone soars in the air while competing in the triple jump Friday evening at Welch Stadium. Malone placed 4th in the triple jump.
“Coach Thornton always does a fabulous job with them (the jumpers),” Wells said. “Once Billy understands some things and get some conditioning behind him, he’s going to be pretty decent.”
Eric Dorsey finished second in the shot put with a throw of 46-4 and came in third in the discus with a heave of 134-10 1/2. Troy Pierce threw the shot 44-7 1/2 to place fifth.
Eric Wells had a strong showing in the javelin with a third-place finish (158-09), but the story of the day was Shawnee Heights’ Iain Trimble breaking his own Class 5A State record in the event with a hurl of 212-3, six feet better than his previous mark and just 1 foot, 8 inches shy of the overall State record. Miles Ringgold placed sixth (145-6) and Grant Carson came in eighth (133-10 1/2).
The boys 4x800 team gave Emporia its only victory on the track, as the quartet of Jacob Davies, Ryan Parks, Lance Sadler and Andrew Wayman crossed the line in 8 minutes, 44.1 seconds to beat Junction City by 11 seconds. Emporia’s distance medley team came in second, while the spring medley squad came in fourth and the 4x100 relay came in seventh.
Emporia High's Lance Sadler, right, hands off to Andrew Wayman in the boys 4x800 meter relay Friday evening at Welch Stadium.
On the girls side, Emporia swept the medley races, winning the sprint medley in a time of 13:04 and the distance medley in 4:24. In both events, the EHS girls stayed in the lead or close to it for the majority of the race before Missouri-bound senior Layne Moore ran her 800 leg of each race. Moore distanced herself from the pack in both races, allowing the Lady Spartans to claim each victory with relative ease.
Samantha Kraft led the way for the EHS girls in the field events, as she won the pole vault with a clearance of 9-6 and finished second in the long jump with a leap of 15-7 1/4, just one-half inch behind Wichita-Independent’s Brittany Pierpoint. Lindsay Holland finished behind Kraft in the pole vault (8-6) and came in second in the high jump (5-0).
Raelynn Pearson captured a pair of second-place finishes with a throw of 31-1 in the shot and 96-9 3/4 in the discus.
Emporia’s 4x100 team ran into some trouble when unfamiliarity led to a couple of shaky handoffs, which likely cost the Lady Spartans the chance at a higher finish. Instead, EHS finished less than a second out of the lead in third behind Junction City and Olathe South.
Emporia High's Heather Coe runs the second leg of the girls 4x100 meter relay Friday evening at Welch Stadium.
“We hadn’t really had a chance to work on them (handoffs) in practice,” said Heather Coe, who ran the second leg of the race. “When you haven’t worked on them, it makes it difficult. It’s just our second race though.”
The meet was delayed for about 30 minutes about an hour and a half into competition because of rain and lightening, but resumed once the thunderstorm cell had passed. However, at about 7:30 p.m., a stronger round of storms passed over Welch Stadium, and the coaches decided to end the meet with six events left.
“It wasn’t worth it to send the kids out and bring them back in and send them out and bring them back in,” Wells said. “Overall, though, I was pretty pleased with how we competed.
“We’ve got a long ways to go, but the kids are making progress.”
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