Carson Maroon dominates distance at Illini Prairie Conference meet

By Fred Kroner

Junior Carson Maroon dominated both distance races on Tuesday (May 2) as the St. Joseph-Ogden boys’ track and field squad captured team honors in the Illini Prairie Conference Meet at Paxton.

Maroon won the 3,200 meters in 10 minutes, 11.51 seconds for a 3.03-second margin of victory. In the 1,600 meters, he was clocked in 4:49.77 and won by 3.59 seconds.

Maroon was the only individual winner for the Spartans, who accumulated 125 points to the 105 scored by runner-up Monticello. Third-place Tolono Unity had 103 points.

SJ-O had two top-eight placers in every individual running race and also had three of its relays score points.

Sprinter Jackson Greer earned three top-six places, as well as logging his career-best time in the 400 meters (third in 52.89 seconds). He was also fifth in the 100 meters (11.72 seconds) and sixth in the 200 meters (24.36 seconds).

Runners Tyler Burch and Wyatt Wertz posted a pair of top finishes.

Burch ended fifth in the 200 meters (24.18 seconds) and ran eighth in the 100 meters (11.78 seconds).

Wertz placed fourth in the 300-meter hurdles (46.63 seconds) and took sixth in the 110-meter high hurdles (personal-best 18.1 seconds).

Logan Smith was the conference runner-up in the 300-meter hurdles (42.47 seconds).

Other team leaders were: Lance Retz (fourth in the 1,600 meters in 4:54.31), Holden Jones (fifth in the 3,200 meters in a personal-best 10:48.16), Kyler Swanson (fifth in the 110-meter high hurdles in 17.8 seconds), Spencer Wilson (fifth in the 800 meters in 2:08.91) and Mason Guido (eighth in the 800 meters in a personal-best 2:12.66).

In the field events, Brock Trimble secured team points with third-place finishes in two events: triple jump (personal-best 39 feet, 5 inches) and discus (142 feet, 1 inch).

The other SJ-O points in field events came from Charlie Schmitz (third in the pole vault at 11 feet, 5 inches), Tim Blackburn-Kelley (fourth in the triple jump at 38 feet, 9 inches), Jackson Ennis (fifth in the discus at 125 feet, 7 inches), Garrett Siems (fifth in the high jump at 5 feet, 6 inches) and Kyle Meccoli (sixth in the shot put at a personal-best 43 feet, 2 inches).

The Spartans’ top-placing relay was their 400-meter foursome, which copped a runner-up finish. Sharing the baton were Blackburn-Kelley, Burch, Aidan Moberg and Wilson. Their combined time was 44.04 seconds.

The featured runners on the third-place 1,600-meter relay were Greer, Aden Armstrong, Maroon and Smith. They toured the four-lap event in 3:40.31.

Finishing in fourth for SJ-O was the 3,200-meter relay unit of Armstrong, Jack Fisher, Joe Griebat and Guido. Their time was 8:50.64.

SJ-0 returns to action on Friday (May 5) at the Clinton Carnival.