Buss, Harshbarger, Colvin and Gaskin take 7th place at IHSA State Meet
By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com
Four St. Joseph-Ogden athletes earned medals in Saturday’s finals of the boys’ IHSA Class 1A state track and field meet at Charleston.
The four teamed up for a seventh-place finish in the 400-meter sprint relay.
Sophomore Brady Buss was joined by three seniors, Kaleb Harshbarger, Dwight Colvin and Lane Gaskin. Collectively, they were timed in 44.06 seconds.
SJ-O finished in a tie for 67th place at state, with three points. In all, 88 Class 1A schools scored points at state.
In Thursday’s qualification session, the SJ-O relay was timed in 44.25 and was seeded ninth for the finals.
This was the 10th year in the past 12 that the SJ-O boys’ program produced a state-placing relay. Overall, it’s the 23rd year out of the last 25 that SJ-O has had a state medalist in boys’ track and field.
SJ-O athletes were near misses for the finals in two other events last week.
Shot putter Hayden Knott ended in 13th place with an effort of 48 feet, 8 inches. The top 12 from the prelims moved on to the finals. Knott was 2 inches away from reaching the finals.
Knott entered state as the 14th seed in Class 1A.
The Spartans’ 800-meter relay – featuring the same four runners as the 400 relay – ended in 11th at state with a time of 1 minute, 31.70 seconds. The top nine schools reached the finals.
Also competing at state were pole vaulter Nolan Peacock, who was tied for 22nd with a 12-foot vault, Gaskin, who was 30th in the 200 meters (24.32 seconds) and the 1,600 relay.
The four-lap relay quartet of Keanen Swanson, Buss, Ethan Vanliew and Harshbarger finished in 22nd place with a time of 3 minutes, 33.52 seconds.
