Bull Dogs finish just 8½ points behind mighty Center Grove

Columbus North’s 4×100-meter relay team thought it set a school record in last week’s regular-season finale against Franklin, but after the hand time was converted to automatic time, they were a hundreth of a second short.

Thursday night, they left no doubt.

Damon Hunter Jr., Cortez Bandy, Jaylen Flemmons and Mitchell Burton circled the oval in 42.59 seconds, breaking the old school record of 43.03. They also broke the Columbus North Sectional record of 42.71

“I’m really happy for those guys,” North coach Lou Sipe said. “We had a lot of good performances across the board, so I was pleased with what they did tonight.”

The Bull Dogs, who held off Center Grove in the 4×100, couldn’t quite catch the sixth-ranked Trojans in the team race. Center Grove won with 158 points to 149 1/2 for North and 85 for Columbus East.

The Bull Dogs also had wins from Triston Perry in the 110 hurdles, Charlie Allen in the 3,200 and Coleman Tennyson in the shot put. Perry finished in a personal-best 14.90 seconds.

“(Assistant coach) Mike (Behling) has really been coaching me up a lot, so that helped a lot,” Perry said. “That’s a pretty big influence.”

Allen set the pace for the first four laps in the 3,200. But after going through in 4:57, he picked up the pace to try to drop the pack that was chasing him.

The second 1,600, Allen ran a 4:48 to finish in 9:45.64.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever done that (negative split) in the (3,200),” Allen said. “It’s the end of the season, so I know I’m getting faster, getting more leg speed and more oxygen. I’m glad the hard work is paying off.”

Tennyson led a 1-2 finish in the shot. He threw a personal-best 54 feet, 8 1/4 inches.

Hunter Wolford finished second with a throw of 50-9 1/4.

“We had a hard week of practice,” Tennyson said. “The coaches coached me up well, told me what I was doing wrong, and I just got out there and executed.”

Burton also advanced with second-place finishes in the long jump (22-5 1/2) and 100 (11.18) Also finishing second for the Bull Dogs were Brigham Kleinhenz in the pole vault (13-6), Jaylen Flemmons in the 400 (50.86) and Perry in the 300 hurdles (40.08).

North took second in the 4×800 relay (8:14.67) and third in the 4×400 relay (3:37.03). Bandy was third in the 200 (23.28).

East’s T.C. O’Neal edged defending champion Burton by an inch-and-a-half to win the long jump at a personal-best 22-7. O’Neal also finished second in the high jump at 6-7 and ran on the Olympians’ third-place 4×100 relay team (43.90).

“I felt like I competed great,” O’Neal said. “With both numbers, I can definitely make it to state in high jump and long jump.”

Advancing with third-place finishes for East were Jared Clark in the discus (147-2) and Kolby Mitchell in the 100 (11.31).

“We got some guys moving through that we thought we would,” East coach David Miller said. “I thought it was great for T.C. to come out and win the long jump. I thought our kids showed up and competed.”

Hauser finished ninth with 10 points. Pete Trotter led the Jets with a fifth-place effort in the discus (138-0) and a seventh in the shot (45-7).

After the top three in each event, the next-four best performances in each event from the four sectionals that feed into the Warren Central Regional will qualify for that regional, which will be at 6 p.m. Thursday.