WICHITA — One won’t have to search long to find Katie Guevel’s name on the list of career gold-medal winners at the State track and field championships.
After her second straight year of winning four gold medals, the Burlington senior planted herself at third on the all-time list with 12 golds in four years, behind only Claflin’s Jackie Stiles and Little Rivers’ Sandra Myers.
“That’s some pretty elite company,” Guevel said Saturday after winning the Class 3A 200-meter dash to wrap up her fourth gold medal of the day. “I just hope I can have the continued success that the people who came before me had.”
Guevel, who will attend William & Mary next year, produced her latest quartet of championships with a little bit of added flair, as she not only dominated the field in winning the 100, 200, 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles, but she broke the State meet record in three of the events as well.
Her most thrilling — and perhaps most unlikely — record-breaking performance came in the 300 hurdles.
With a sizable lead coming down the homestretch, Guevel strode out too long before second-to-last set of hurdles and very nearly came to a complete stop to avoid crashing into the hurdle. She jumped over the hurdle from a near stand-still and went on to finish the race. Her time of 43.76 seconds still managed to beat Hillsboro’s Julianne Chisholm by almost 2 seconds and bested the old State record of 44.07 seconds.
“If you would have asked me what State record am I going to break today, the last one I would have said is the 300,” Guevel said. “It definitely hasn’t been my strongest race.”
In the preliminaries earlier in the day, Guevel ran the 100-meter dash in a record time of 12.11 seconds before taking the State title in the finals with a time of 12.33. She followed that with a 14.18 in the 100-meter hurdles, which bested her own State meet record of 14.27, which she set on Friday in preliminaries.
The 100 hurdles featured no drama like what would come later in the 300, as Guevel cleared each hurdle cleanly to take the title over Chisholm.
“I’ve gotten to the point where every time it feels really fluid,” Guevel said, “but when I really have a good race, it’s like the hurdles aren’t even there.”
Her final title came in the 200, where she won her 12th State gold medal of her career by crossing the finish line in 24.95 seconds, just barely missing out on yet another State record by .05 seconds.
All told, Guevel won the 100 hurdles all four years of high school, plus she won both the 100 and the 200 each of the last three years and the 300 hurdles the last two years.
“To do anything less than my best is a bad day,” she said, “and I feel like I had a good day today.”
The area picked up another hurdles title thanks to Waverly’s Matt Coursen, who won the Class 1A boys 300-meter hurdles title in a time of 40.05, barely beating out Goessel’s Craig Banman (40.16).
After disappointing finishes earlier on Saturday in both the 100-meter dash and 110-meter hurdles — Coursen finished 15th in the preliminaries of the 100 and did not make the finals while finishing fourth in the 100-meter hurdles — the victory in the 300 hurdles was well worth the wait.
“The 300 is my race,” Coursen said. “I am a lot more comfortable in that race. I stutter-stepped on one hurdle where I got caught up, and that can make all the difference out here, but luckily I finished well.”
State Championships
Saturday in Wichita
Class 1A
Boys 4x800 Finals
4. Burlingame 8:25.49
Christian Markley, Joel Bevitt, Hank Zerbe, Brandon Griffin
9. Madison 8:39.25
Jacob Huber, Danny James, Caleb Hamilton, Henry Ott
Boys 100 Hurdle Finals
4. Matt Coursen, Waverly 15.91
8. Blake Jones, Lebo 16.94
Boys 1,600 Finals
16. Dustin Droege, Burlingame 5:34.04
Boys 4x100 Finals
8. Madison 47.13
Caleb Hamilton, Doug Fox, Donovan Hamilton, Henry Ott
Boys 400 Finals
7. Cameron Smith, Lebo 52.24
Boys 300 Hurdle Finals
1. Matt Coursen, Waverly 40.05
Boys 800 Finals
7. August Stueve, Olpe 2:02.53
11. Dakota Foster, Waverly 2:07.44
15. Brandon Griffin, Burlingame 2:13.69
Boys 4x400 Finals
3. Waverly 3:29.83
Heath Redding, Kale Hamm, Dakota Foster, Matt Coursen
Boys Long Jump
14. Jordan Stout, Madison 19-05.00
Boys Javelin
3. Heath Redding, Waverly 182-08
Girls 4x800 Finals
7. Waverly 10:28.99
Kayla Pyle, Amy Schmidt, Tina Ervin, Whitney Good
13. Southern Coffey County 10:45.43
Shelby Birk, Hannah Morray, Lanesha Harvey, Kristen Garland
Girls 100 Finals
3. Tabitha Lester, Burlingame 13.33
Girls 1,600 Finals
3. Sharon Zeller, Olpe 5:39.76
Girls 800 Finals
12. Aerielle Floyd, Burlingame 2:32.70
15. Tina Ervin, Waverly 2:36.82
Girls Discus
5. Tera Titus, Madison 109-06
14. Jayme Hoag, Waverly 97-08
Girls High Jump
4. Morgan Stout, Madison 5-00.00
10. Megan Steward, Waverly 4-10.00
Class 2A
Boys 4x800 Finals
7. Flinthills 8:32.49
Jacob Ritter, Grant Vogt, Ethan Eisenbarth, Logan Fullerton
Boys 4x100 Finals
4. Lyndon 44.65
Matt Janssen, Keene Neimack, Jesse Filburn, Reed Neimack
Boys 400 Finals
3. Keene Neimack, Lyndon 51.78
Boys 800 Finals
11. Dylan Filburn, Lyndon 2:03.50
16. Logan Fullerton, Flinthills 2:11.37
Girls 4x800 Finals
11. Flinthills 10:41.42
Carley Dunham, Rachel Allemand, Sydney Idleman, Renee Simon
Girls 1,600 Finals
13. Julie Dorneker, Chase County 5:50.33
14. Jenny Neuenschwander, Lyndon 5:51.47
15. Carley Dunham, Flinthills 5:56.72
Girls 800 Finals
12. Renee Simon, Flinthills 2:34.89
Girls Shot Put
16. Andrea Hoke, Lyndon 29-07.50
Girls Long Jump
12. Hannah Jackson, Flinthills 14-09.75
Class 3A
Boys 4x800 Finals
12. Osage City 8:46.08
Blake Stoppel, Joey Giesy, Tyrel Clark, Colton Rinzler
Boys 1,600 Finals
14. Pete Symmonds, Northern Hts 4:54.57
Boys 400 Finals
2. Tyrel Reed, Burlington 50.36
Boys 800 Finals
16. Pete Symmonds, Northern Hts 2:14.13
Girls 100 Hurdle Finals
1. Katie Guevel, Burlington 14.18*
Girls 100 Finals
1. Katie Guevel, Burlington 12.33
Girls 1,600 Finals
14. Sky Linsey, Northern Hts 5:58.07
15. Amy Lee, Northern Hts 6:00.90
16. Ashley McClain, Pomona 6:01.39
Girls 300 Hurdle Finals
1. Katie Guevel, Burlington 43.76*
Girls 200 Finals
1. Katie Guevel, Burlington 24.95
Girls High Jump
6. Becca Holman, Burlington 5-02.00
15. Danielle Dreier, Northern Hts 4-08.00
Girls Triple Jump
8. Jessica Menard, Burlington 33-07.00
Girls Pole Vault
8. Abigail Browning, Mission Vly 9-00.00
*=State meet record