Columbus East’s Jacob Guse competes in the discus during the Hoosier Hills Conference boys track meet Thursday at Columbus East High School.
All season long, Columbus East’s strength to its boys track team has been in the field events, and Thursday night was no different.
The Olympians won three of the five field events, finished second in another and third in the fifth. That buoyed East to a third-place finish with 75 points in the Hoosier Hills Conference team standings behind Floyd Central (170 1/2) and New Albany (106).
Junior Jacob Guse led the charge with wins in the shot put (46 feet, 7 ½ inches) and discus (145-9).
“It felt good today,” Guse said. “It’s not my absolute best, but I’m happy about my performance. I’m really happy to win this as a junior. I’m hoping to repeat this again next year, and I’m looking forward to sectional. I want to bust a good one next week and get to regional.”
Olympians senior Anthony Lloyd won the long jump (22-0) and finished second in the high jump (6-4), both personal-bests.
“Tonight, I just came in feeling really good and hydrated all day, stretched and made sure I did everything I needed to,” Lloyd said. “I didn’t have any pain holding me down, so just went and did everything the coaches told us to and got some (personal records).”
East’s Gavin Edgecomb finished third in the pole vault (11-0), Henrique Carvalho took third in the 300 meter hurdles (42.78 seconds) and Josh Schrader was fourth in the discus (124-8). Tommy Anderson finished fourth in the 400 (53.76), and the Olympians placed third in the 4×100 (44.21) and 4×400 (3:39.64) relays.
“We got some PRs today from Anthony,” Wood said. “Guse didn’t PR, but getting first, we’re not complaining. We competed very well. We had a lot of PRs. We had guys that performed like they should and guys that did a little bit better. I feel like now is an awesome time to be peaking, so we’re excited about next week.”
Jennings County finished seventh with 24 1/2 points. The Panthers’ night was highlighted by a victory and a school record-setting performance in the 4×800 relay. Lane Elsner, Brenden Baker, Eli Wahlman and Kraedyn Young 8:08.54, breaking the school record by 33-hundreths of a second.
“Our 4×800 group and our distance kids have really been working hard with (distance) coach (Luke) Inman, and their goal all year has been to break that school record,” Jennings coach Justin Smith said. “That was a big deal for them. They’ve been shooting for that all year.”
Also for Jennings, Peyton Hayden finished fourth in the shot put (43-11).
“We had some good performances all around,” Smith said. “We still have some work to do.”
