During Thursday night’s crosstown track and field meet, Rick Sluder helped run the high jump and served as a timer and exchange zone judge as part of his array of duties as meet director.
Sluder also managed to find time to coach his Columbus North boys and girls track teams in his first North-East track meet as head coach. The seventh-ranked Bull Dog boys won 85-47, and the North girls prevailed 99-33.
“I think East competed really well tonight,” Sluder said. “I know they were a little bit banged up with some missing kids, but I thought it was a great meet between the two schools, and I realize how much I missed it last year.”
Sluder got some big-time performances from his athletes, the biggest of which came from junior Tucker Smith in the shot put. Smith broke his own school record for the third time in three meets this season, throwing 68 feet, 5 3/4 inches on his third and final throw.
Smith’s toss was less than six inches off the all-time state record of 68-11 1/2 set by Lawrence North’s Brandon Pounds in 2008.
“I’ve been eyeing it this year,” Smith said. “I’m hoping to end on 70, so if I can get it, I’ll be pretty happy. I hit the D-load right this week. I was having a little trouble with that, but having two or three days to D-load instead of a week, I got it right this time, and everything felt good.”
Smith’s three throws in the shot went 66-10, 66-3 and 68-5 3/4.
“Tucker is amazing,” Sluder said. “He’s just an amazingly hard worker, and he’s bringing the younger guys along, too. David Sandusky threw a (personal record) in the discus, and that’s all that attitude the guys have down there, and they’re actually bringing the girls along with them, as well. Our throwers really did a great job tonight.”
Sandusky won the discus with a throw of 157-7. Other winners for the Bull Dogs were Liam Phillips in the pole vault (10-6), Jack Wright in the 110-meter hurdles, Marquis Mixon in the 100 (11.1 seconds), Will Russell in the 1,600 (4:50), Reese Kilbarger-Stumpff in the 400 (51.6), Josh Wright in the 300 hurdles (42.7), Clayton Guthrie in the 800 (2:02) and Austin Pulkowski in the 3,200 (9:51). North also won the 4×800 relay (9:18).
East’s Crase Bergman was a double-winner, taking the long jump (20-5 1/2) and 200 (23.2). Anthony Lloyd took the high jump (5-10), and the Olympians captured the 4×100 (44.7) and 4×400 (3:36.24) relays.
In the 4×400 relay, East built a big lead with a strong second leg from Bergman, and Malachi Parks held off a charge from Kilbarger-Stumpff on the anchor leg.
“I think we came out and competed a little bit,” East coach Scott Pherson said. “We’ll do better next time. We had some guys step up and do what they’re supposed to do and some others that will. Crase had a good meet. Malachi had a great meet, too. The 4×400 was really exciting.”
On the girls side, the Bull Dogs got double wins from Helena Ho in the long jump (14-11 1/2) and 100 (12.4), Emily Herndon in the shot (40-2 3/4) and discus (118-3) and Mackenzie Barnett in the 800 (2:23.6) and 3,200 (11:03). Other winners for North were Brianna Newell in the 1,600 (5:20), Helen Alderfer in the 400 (1:03) and La’Monica Smith in the 200 (26.7).
The Bull Dogs also swept the 4×800 (10:31), 4×100 (51.3) and 4×400 relays.
“All the events we were supposed to score in, we did score, and we had some really good performances in some events that I wasn’t sure about,” Sluder said. “Some of our field events, we really came through that we were kind of iffy in, so I was really happy with our performance, boys and girls.”
Emma Gray led the East girls with wins in the 100 hurdles (17.1) and 300 hurdles (50.8). Katie Hagan took the pole vault (8-6), and Elise LaSell captured the high jump (4-8).
“We had some really great times tonight for us,” East girls coach Glen Brown said. “North is a great team, and we knew that coming in. Our goal tonight was to see if we could compete with them, and I thought we competed well. We didn’t come out on top, but our times show that we came, and we competed and we did what we wanted to do.”
