By ERIC MEYER
and DELBERT PETERS

Staff writers

Nate Hein’s 14-foot vault for Hillsboro at the Trojans’ league championships in Pratt and Goessel’s team dominance at its league meet at home highlighted last week in Marion County sports.

With golf, baseball, and softball taking the weekend off to prepare for regional action that started Monday, track and field took center stage.

Other winning performances were a 12:57.34 time by Hillsboro’s Emersyn Funk in the 3,200-meter run at the Central Kansas League meet in Pratt and a 118-foot discus throw by Peabody-Burns’ Jeff Glover at the Wheat State League meet in Goessel.

Centre and Marion both recorded at least one second place finish in their league meets, but points may not tell the whole story, according to Marion coach Grant Thierolf.

“We didn’t score a ton of points at this meet but we actually had a pretty good showing,” he said after the Warriors’ Heart of America League meet at Whitewater. “We had 10 different athletes score personal records at the meet, so our kids performed pretty well in the toughest meet of the year.”

Goessel’s strategy of competing in as many events as possible paid off with the Bluebirds finishing first among boys teams and second among girls teams at the Wheat State League meet for which the Bluebirds were the host school.

All three relays for the Goessel boys won their races.

Juniors Joey Lapp and Kacen Smith competed in pole vault for the first time in a varsity meet.

“We figured our league would not have very many pole vaulters, and these guys were willing to give it a try,” coach Curtis Guhr said.

Smith won the event, clearing 10 feet. Lapp came in second.

Grant Bryant captured gold in all his events, and Smith led Goessel in points with 26.5.

As a team, the boys outdistanced Little River by 28 points. The girls fell only two short of Little River to finish second.

Underclassmen helped lead the way for the Bluebird girls with freshman Aimee Funk involved in three gold medals.