Obviously, there is one meet this week that ruled all: The Kansas Relays. You can read all about that over in this article. However, not everyone has the opportunity to make the trip to Lawrence and compete the big stage. Not only are there other opportunities around the state to perform, some athletes even pulled double-duty this week, competing on Tuesday and Friday to get their raceday repetitions in.
Leading off our highlights is Garden Plain's Haidyn Thompson. She hasn't long jumped since her freshman year, but decided to add it to her arsenal alongside her already-elite sprints. Turns out she's pretty good, leaping to victory at both the Belle Plaine Invite on Tuesday and her home Garden Plain Invite on Friday. Her mark of 17-3.5 now leads 2A Girls this season.
Out West, Hoxie's Ryan Shaw extended his winning streak to 9, sweeping the 100-200-Long Jump at both the Stockton Invite on Tuesday and the Hill City Invite on Friday. He also left Stockton with PR's in all three events. The impressive part of this streak is that his primary events a year ago were the 400m (2A Runner-Up) and Triple Jump, both of which he has yet to compete in this season.
On the team side of things, Axtell's boys are hitting their stride. The 1A Eagles won 10 events at Rock Creek on Friday, and placed 2nd in 3 more, beating a handful of 4A schools in the process.
Some of the best sprinters in Kansas were on display at Manhattan on Friday. Maize's Bryce Cohoon swept the 100 and 200 in state-best times, while Manhattan's Harli Omli extended her state lead in the 200.
At Royal Valley on Friday, Ethan Burton led the Braves of Council Grove to a team victory. He won the 100 & 200 and anchored their winning 4x100 and 4x400 relays. Burton looks to be a favorite in the 3A sprints, while his relays are starting to look like they could score highly as well.
Royal Valley Results | Smith Center Results
Isaiah Bates of Pleasanton extended his winning streak to 15 in the 100m, winning both his home invite and the Kansas Relays this week. The Fort Scott Community College commit is now 30-5 in his high school track career.
To wrap things up, we'll show a little love to Beloit's Grady Seyfert, who launched a gigantic personal best in the discus on Tuesday at Smith Center. Landing at 195-8, Seyfert now sits #5 in the country. He also thew a PR in the shot, landing at 56-5. While he wasn't able to repeat the feat three days later at KU, who would expect him to? With a tired arm, he still managed one of the most impressive doubles of the week going 165-8 in the discus and 54-4.5 to place 5th in the shot put.