South Harrison relay team wins first at district tournament

South Harrison’s 4×100-meter relay team took first place at the Class 2, District 8 track meet Saturday at Unionville.

The Bulldog team finished in a time of 45.08 seconds, which beat second place Lathrop with a 45.32 finish.

Bulldog Coach Caleb Obert said the relay four had to recover from the less of Corby Clark who had suffered a hamstring injury earlier in the season.

“We had been shuffling a little bit around since Corby got hurt,” Obert said. Stanton Brier Blake, a sophomore, took over for Clark in running the final leg of the relay. Other members of the team were Junior Johnson, Bryce Kirk and Tyler Preston.

South Harrison qualified a total of 10 female and male athletes for the sectional meet on Saturday at Albany.

Mariah Sunderland was the top finisher for the Lady Bulldogs. Mariah tied with Breeanna Saur of Lathrop with a jump of 9 feet, but Saur won the event on a tie-breaker.

Also advancing to the sectionals for South Harrison’s girls were Neiley Karns, third in the discus; Kiana Bennett, third in the pole vault; Bailey Mehrhoff, fourth in the 1600-meter run, and Kiana Bennett, fourth in the 100m hurdles.

Lathrop won both the male and female team championships. The Bulldog boys finished eighth overall and the girls were ninth in team scoring.

Blake finished second in the 100m dash with a time of 11.61 seconds, just a hundredth of a second behind Elliott Forney of East Buchanan. Blake also qualified in the 200m dash by placing third.

Tyler Preston was second in the 110m meter hurdles with a time of 16.61 seconds, just 5 hundreds of a second behind Michael Casebolt of Brookfield.

Others qualifying for the sectionals were Tanner Daugherty, who was third in the 3200m run, and Kasey McFall, fourth in the shot put.

Several other athletes earned points at Unionville.

“We had a lot of team members who set personal bests at the districts,” Obert said.

Bryce Kirk, a junior, beat his own personal best in the long jump with a distance of 19-01.75, placing sixth but failing to qualify for the sectional.

Chris Spence was fifth in the 800m run; the boys’ 4x800m relay team (Austin Ward, Derek McClure, Tanner Daugherty and Chris Spence) placed fifth; Kasey McFall was eighth in the discus; Bailey Mehrhoff was sixth in the 800m run; Keagan Madison was seventh in the shot put, and the 4x100m relay team (Bennett, Sunderland, Forbach and Johnson) was also seventh.