Friday evening, Lawrence Free State hosted the annual Barrier Breakers meet. With an atypical order of events, the meet often provides an environment for elite marks and high-level competition for schools from the KC Metro, Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, Emporia, and even as far as Wichita. Oddly enough, even Central Heights, a rural 2A school near Ottawa, joined in to break some barriers.
Weather on Friday night wasn't perfect, but it was the best most of these schools have seen all season. Temperatures were around 60 and winds blew at around 20 miles per hour most of the day. Not a bad spring day in Kansas, all things considered.
The statewide parity really showed through at this meet. At times, the competition made the mighty metro schools look silly. Ultimately, though, the depth of Olathe West was too much for anyone to handle, and the owls cruised to team victories in both the boys and girls divisions.
Meet Results - Barrier Breakers
The dominance on the girls side was led off with a monster performance in the 3200 early in the meet. Charis Robinson, Kate Miller, Kalyn Willingham, and Paige Baker went 1-2-4-5 and ALL set personal best times. Paired with Bree Newport, the Owl girls now hold 5 of the top-10 times in 6A. Newport passed on the 3200 to instead take 3rd in the 1600 and 2nd in the 800. The 3200 featured a lot of jostling early on, causing Washburn Rural's Rylee Ismert to fall and get spiked in the arm. She ended up 10th, still PR'd and broke the 12-minute barrier before heading off to get stitches.
Also in the distance events, Shawnee Mission East's Lida Padgett followed up her quality outing last week at KU with a 1600m victory at 5:11, an 11-second PR. Her teammate Wyatt Haughton performed similarly, pulling away from the 3200m field in 9:03. Wichita Trinity's Sam Ferguson was runner-up at 9:20, and later followed that up with a thrilling victory in the 800 at 1:57. Wichita Trinity isn't just the Clay Shively show, that team is loaded with studs.
Speaking of studs, Bishop Miege has a couple. Lamar Lynch Jr brought home two medals, winning the 200 and placing 3rd in the long jump. Meanwhile PJ McCallop took 2nd in the 200 and 1st in the 400.
Jake Muller was a bright spot for Hayden, running 39.73 in the 300 hurdles to win. That is the fastest mark in 4A this season. He was also 2nd leg on their 4x400 which won in a Kansas-leading time of 3:24.
Boys 4x400 Rankings | Girls 200m Rankings
Alesecio Batson from Topeka West proved his wind-aided triple jump from last week wasn't cool enough, so he leapt a wind-legal 46-8.25 to win, just 2 inches shy of last week and is still farther than the rest of the state, windy or not.
In the throws, St. Thomas Aquinas sophomore Joey Goodenow went wild, throwing a PR to win the discus at 161-10 and also claiming victory in the shot. Joe Loughman completed the Aquinas throws sweep with a victory in the javelin.
In the sprints, Olathe East's Damiya Richards showed out. After a solid victory in the 100m, a major battle loomed with state leader Harli Omli of Manhattan. Richards managed victory there as well, defeating Omli by 0.22 seconds.
Free State's Reese Hulcher was the lone athlete to come away with three gold medals, winning the 100 hurdles, high jump, and long jump competitions. The senior was already a good jumper, but the addition of hurdles this year has turned her into a serious point-scorer for the Firebirds.
Overall, Barrier Breakers produced a scattering of elite performances. With a few new state-leading marks and countless PR's, the meet shows that there is still a lot to look forward to as we move into the second half of the season.