By Fred Kroner
Villa Grove athletes lined up eight top-10 placements on Wednesday (May 18) in the Tuscola Class 1A boys’ sectional track and field meet.
None of the Blue Devils qualified for state.
Three VG competitors finished sixth in their individual events: Layne Rund (400 meters in 54.18), Kurt Zimmerman (3,200 meters in 10:43.60) and Kyler Williams (triple jump at 39 feet, 3 inches).
Other team leaders were Braydon Dowler (eighth in the 200 meters in 23.77 seconds) and Rund (10th in the high jump at 5 feet, 6 inches).
Three Blue Devil relays also wound up among the top eight at the sectional.
The 800-meter relay foursome of Mason Carter, Gunner Cline, Dowler and Ryan Schlueter ran fifth in 1:39.99.
Finishing in seventh place was the 400-meter relay unit of Carter, Cline, Dowler and Rund. Their cumulative time was 46.10 seconds.
Sharing the baton in the 3,200-meter relay were Blake Davis, Andrew Fonner, Logan Turner and Austin Zoch. They stopped the clock in 11:14.75. They wound up in ninth place.
Team honors in the 16-team meet were captured by Arthur-Lovington/Atwood-Hammond with 99 points. Villa Grove was 14th with six points.
On Monday (May 16), three Villa Grove athletes participated in the 39th News-Gazette Honor Roll boys’ track and field meet at Urbana.
Zimmerman was the runner-up in the 3,200 meters in 11 minutes, 2.24 seconds.
Dowler ran sixth in the 200 meters (24.01 seconds) and Rund finished ninth in the high jump (5 feet, 5 ¾ inches).
The team’s seniors were Ashton Harrison, Isaac Horein, Elijah Kiesel, Kaleb Miller and JaDeon Thompson-Burton.
