By RICHIE HALL
CARMEL – After a one-day delay, the Carmel boys track and field event took place Friday at Carmel Stadium.
It was worth the wait, especially for the host Greyhounds, as they claimed the team trophy. It was the first sectional title for Carmel since 2017 and its 26th overall championship. In addition, the Greyhounds had four champions and had 14 qualifiers for Thursday’s regional at Lafayette Jefferson.
“The guys did a great job,” said Carmel coach Ken Browner. “We’re a young team and we really scored where we needed to score. We didn’t really lose much on our seeds today. The guys we expected to get out got out, and we just competed well. We got to be better next week, because the regional’s going to be very tough for us.”
The hurdlers led the way for the ‘Hounds, with 1-2 finishes in both the 110 and 300 races. Jakob Pearson won the 110 race, with Brandon Tester placing second. Colton Parker was first in the 300, followed by Logan Sandlin.
The junior Sandlin a 1-2 finish himself, as he won the pole vault. Pearson was second in that event. Carmel also won the 4×800 relay, with Drew Thornton, Charlie Schuman, Robert Kinney, Ben Johnson on that winning team.
Other regional qualifiers for the Greyhounds were Donnovan Duffy in the 100 dash, Eli Konow in the 800 run, Thomas Gastineau in the 1600 run, Patrick Campbell in the 3200 run, Caleb Shaffer in the shot put, and Carmel’s 4×100 and 4×400 relays.
Fishers placed second with 137 points. The Tigers had the most event wins of any team with five, and advanced 11 on to the regional.
Fishers dominated the throwing events, with 1-2 finishes in both the shot put and the discus. Wyatt Puff was first in the discus, followed by Hayden Tobias in second. The two switched places for the shot put: Tobias was the winner, with Puff the runner-up.
The Tigers also swept the middle to long distance races. Freshman Keefer Soehngen cruised to a win in the 400 dash; his time of 49.62 seconds was over a second ahead of second place.
“I think I did well,” said Soehngen. He called the experience of running in his first-ever sectional “very nerve-wracking” at first, but is now ready for the next level at regional.
“I’m just looking forward to some good competition and getting pushed to my limits,” said Soehngen.
Jaylen Castillo won a tight 800 run, where the difference between first and fourth place was 0.29 seconds. Ethan Meyer paced the 1600 run.
Also making it to out to the regional for Fishers were HL Lewis in the 200 dash, Anthony Campbell in the long jump, and the Tigers’ 4×400 and 4×800 relays.
Hamilton Southeastern finished a strong third with 115 points. Sprint sensation Noah Malone had another great performance, as he had a part in three of the Royals’ four event wins.
Malone started with a victory in the 100 dash, finishing the race in a new sectional record time of 10.72 seconds. Malone later won the 200 dash, and also was part of Southeastern’s first-place 4×100 team, joining Stephen Sydnor, Gage Pratt and Caleb Durden.
“The 100 went really well, but my ankle was tweaked at the end,” said Malone. He admitted it threw him off a little bit, but things got better by the 4×100, which he called “extremely good. We finished strong.”
As for the 200, Malone said he “could’ve had a cleaner race, but the 200, just making it to regionals was the ultimate goal.”
Pratt finished as runner-up to Malone in the 100 and 200 dashes, giving the Royals 1-2 sweeps in both events. Jacob Wiggers was HSE’s fourth winner of the day, pacing the 3200 run.
Other regional qualifiers for the Royals were Emilio Rios Rojas in the 400 dash, Eric Carothers in the 1600 run and Xan Cluff in the pole vault.
Noblesville placed fourth as a team with 79 points, winning two events and sending five on to the regional. Shomari Rogers-Walton was first in the long jump, and he later joined Shawn Kinslow, DeVontez Cox and Mitchell Conard to win the 4×400 relay.
“It was fun,” said Rogers-Walton. “And I’ve been working at this. Last year I didn’t do too well on long jump.” Rogers-Walton finished eighth last year in the long jump.
“To win this year meant a lot to me,” said Rogers-Walton. “And winning the 4×4, I just got put on it this year and I’ve been trying my hardest to try to get better at it. And I’m really trying to help the team win, and today, to get the win, it just meant a lot.”
Also qualifying for the regional were Cox in the 400 dash, Andrew Anderson in the 800 run and Andrew Herman in the high jump.
Westfield finished in fifth place with 65.5 points. The Shamrocks had four advance to the regional, led by the runner-up 4×800 relay team of Mahamat Djour, Max Gutwein, Noah Douthit and David Mannella.
Other Westfield regional qualifiers were Calvin Grenda in the 300 hurdles, Jacob Netral in the discus and the Shamrocks’ 4×100 relay team.
Guerin Catholic’s Quinn Gallagher finished third in the 3200 run, also making it to regional.
Hamilton Heights’ Bayden Lutz placed fifth in the pole vault to lead the Huskies, while Sheridan’s Nick Burnell took seventh in the 110 hurdles and eighth in the high jump.
Several other performances were good enough to likely receive callbacks to regional. Those will be announced at a later date.
Here is a list of team scores and top eight finishers in each event.
Team scores: Carmel 153.5, Fishers 137, Hamilton Southeastern 115, Noblesville 79, Westfield 65.5, Lebanon 27, Guerin Catholic 21, Western Boone 13, Hamilton Heights 9, Sheridan 3.
100 dash: 1. Noah Malone (HSE) 10.72, new sectional record, 2. Gage Pratt (HSE) 11.04, 3. Donnovan Duffy (C) 11.13, 4. Alex Kukura (W) 11.22, 5. Macalister Smith (N) 11.30, 6. Jason Lassic (F) 11.33, 7. Mason Piening (W) 11.51, 8. Dylan Downing (C) 11.53.
200 dash: 1. Malone (HSE) 21.88, 2. Pratt (HSE) 22.24, 3. HL Lewis (F) 22.40, 4. Ethan Zhang (C) 22.60, 5. Francis Agbo (W) 22.61, 6. Cole Carrithers (F) 23.20, 7. Aidan Simoneau (C) 23.39, 8. Christiaan Huisden (W) 23.53.
400 dash: 1. Keefer Soehngen (F) 49.62, 2. DeVontez Cox (N) 50.89, 3. Emilio Rios Rojas (HSE) 50.97, 4. Chris Stein (HSE) 52.58, 5. Bilal Alshalabi (F) 53.37, 6. Logan Burks (C) 53.59, 7. Isaiah Thompson (C) 53.60, 8. Matthew Conard (N) 53.98.
800 run: 1. Jaylen Castillo (F) 1:58.80, 2. Andrew Anderson (N) 1:58.92, 3. Eli Konow (C) 1:59.07, 4. Drew Smith (F) 1:59.09, 5. Justin Amburgy (N) 2:01.56, 6. David Mannella (W) 2:01.83, 7. Bingham Hudson (C) 2:02.54, 8. Jack Struss (HSE) 2:03.35.
1600 run: 1. Ethan Meyer (F) 4:20.30, 2. Thomas Gastineau (C) 4:24.85, 3. Eric Carothers (HSE) 4:25.08, 4. Blake Hipkiss (N) 4:25.41, 5. Cameron Harless (C) 4:27.45, 6. Colton Collier (WB) 4:28.17, 7. Eric Swinson (HSE) 4:28.24, 8. Hunter Christy (F) 4:34.05.
3200 run: 1. Jacob Wiggers (HSE) 9:31.67, 2. Patrick Campbell (C) 9:33.06, 3. Quinn Gallagher (GC) 9:36.43, 4. Travis Hickner (N) 9:40.38, 5. Brady Jarosinski (HSE) 9:41.28, 6. Will Clark (F) 9:48.79, 7. Cole Kimmel (N) 9:48.82, 8. Grant Moon (C) 9:50.20.
110 hurdles: 1. Jakob Pearson (C) 14.41, 2. Brandon Tester (C) 14.96, 3. Landon Belcher (L) 15.02, 4. Cooper Boehm (W) 15.05, 5. Caleb Durden (HSE) 15.18, 6. Marcus Roux (F) 15.55, 7. Nick Burnell (S) 15.89, 8. Carson Voorhis (W) 16.43.
300 hurdles: 1. Colton Parker (C) 39.43, 2. Logan Sandlin (C) 39.55, 3. Calvin Grenda (W) 40.11, 4. Billy Freudenthal (GC) 40.24, 5. Durden (HSE) 41.29, 6. Mason McCartney (F) 42.72, 7. Reece Boland (F) 42.82, 8. Voorhis (W) 43.08.
4×100 relay: 1. Southeastern (Stephen Sydnor, Pratt, Durden, Malone) 42.47, 2. Carmel (Dylan Downing, Colton Parker, Zhang, Duffy) 42.48, 3. Westfield (Kukura, Mario Chalmers, Piening, Agbo) 42.80, 4. Noblesville (Shomari Rogers-Walton, Shawn Kinslow, Smith, Mitchell Conard) 43.32, 5. Fishers (Trenton Mabry, Lewis, Lassic, Carrithers) 43.46, 6. Lebanon (Belcher, JC Reese, Julio Maldonado, Trevor Winkles) 44.68, 7. Heights (Nate Jozsa, Jake Brinker, Isaac Tuma, Luke Knepper) 46.27.
4×400 relay: 1. Noblesville (Rogers-Walton, Kinslow, Cox, Mi. Conard) 3:22.46, 2. Fishers (Lewis, Meyer, Castillo, Soehngen) 3:23.15, 3. Carmel (Owen Schafer, Colton Parker, Sandlin, Konow) 3:23.58, 4. Westfield (Grenda, Mahamat Djour, Kukura, Joe Harris) 3:26.73, 5. Southeastern (Clayton Toner, Rios Rojas, Stein, Kyle Gomez) 3:29.98, 6. Lebanon (Garrett Unger, Aaron Gommel, Reese, Belcher) 3:36.56, 7. Guerin Catholic (Freudenthal, Matthew Fletcher, J.P. Spoonmore, Patrick Hagel) 3:38.00, 8. Heights (Luke Vanderwall, Preston Miller, Landon Steele, Drew Tomaszewski) 3:48.63.
4×800 relay: 1. Carmel (Drew Thornton, Charlie Schuman, Robert Kinney, Ben Johnson) 8:03.57, 2. Westfield (Djour, Max Gutwein, Noah Douthit, Mannella) 8:03.81, 3. Fishers (Jake Brattain, Christy, Charlie Foutty, Castillo) 8:05.61, 4. Guerin Catholic (Spoonmore, Fletcher, Holden King, Joseph Barrett) 8:21.71, 5. Southeastern (Alexander Brisben, Elliot Robinson, Caleb Lindsay, Grant Wilson) 8:35.32, 6. Noblesville (Nick Dombroski, Andrew Knight, Luke Shinneman, Seth Koszyk) 8:37.03, 7. Heights (Steele, Vanderwall, Clay Forrer, Tomaszewski) 9:09.81, 8. Lebanon (Nick Toleos, Josh King-Riner, Jared Carter, Gommel) 9:40.95.
High jump: 1. Logan Benson (WB) 6-6, 2. Andrew Herman (N) 6-4.5, 3. John Morgan (L) 6-1, 4. Anthony Campbell (F) 6-1, 5. Burks (C) 6-0, 6. Nicolas Love (N) 5-10, 7. Peyton Forbes (F) 5-10, 8. Burnell (S) 5-10.
Pole vault: 1. Sandlin (C) 14-4, 2. Pearson (C) 13-4, 3. Xan Cluff (HSE) 13-4, 4. Jackson Dunn (F) 13-0, 5. Bayden Lutz (HH) 12-6, 6. Josh Thompson (HSE) 12-0, 7. Cameron Murray (GC) 11-6, 8. Jonathan Frey (W) 11-6.
Long jump: 1. Rogers-Walton (N) 22-7, 2. A. Campbell (F) 21-11.75, 3. Morgan (L) 21-9, 4. Durden (HSE) 20-10, 5. Jaedon King (C) 20-8.5, 6. Herman (N) 20-5, 7. Michael Viele (HSE) 20-5, 8. Kyle Senuta (C) 20-1.5.
Shot put: 1. Hayden Tobias (F) 58-5, 2. Wyatt Puff (F) 53-11.75, 3. Caleb Shaffer (C) 53-0.5, 4. Colin Caldwell (W) 50-9, T5. Jacob Netral (W) 48-5.5; Jon Williams (C) 48-5.5, 7. Evan Lantz (HSE) 47-4.25, 8. Nick Demas (GC) 45-9.
Discus: 1. Puff (F) 163-2.5, 2. Tobias (F) 161-7, 3. Netral (W) 147-11, 4. Nolan Ring (C) 145-10, 5. Graham Hatfield (C) 143-3, 6. Caldwell (W) 135-9, 7. Hunter Crew (L) 134-2, 8. Lantz (HSE) 133-11.5.
The finish of the 800 run was a perfect example of how competitive Friday’s Carmel boys track and field sectional was. Fishers’ Jaylen Castillo (second from left) won the race by 0.12 seconds over Noblesville’s Andrew Anderson (second from right). Carmel’s Eli Konow (right) placed third and Fishers’ Drew Smith (left) was fourth. (Kent Graham)