CCS boys sending record setting contingent to state track

One year after sending its most athletes ever to the state track meet, the Chase County boys track team qualified athletes in the most events ever at Thursday’s C-9 district track meet in Bayard.
Fans can hope the results turn out the same as 2023 when CCS won the Class C State Championship.
Head Coach Carl Zuege said it will be a tight race again this year. CCS wasn’t projected to win last season and isn’t picked to win it all this year.
Zuege picked out several teams that are heading to Omaha with good chances of winning a state title.
“North Platte St. Pat’s, Lincoln Lutheran, Arlington, and Battle Creek will all bring a lot of good performers to the meet. Right now, if you score the meet according to the rankings, we would be somewhere just behind St. Pat’s and Lincoln Lutheran,” Zuege said, adding, CCS went into last year’s meet just behind Battle Creek, and was able to come out on top.
“We had a lot of things break right for us in 2023, so we just have to go perform to the best of our ability and see how it all falls into place. I don’t know for sure how it will end up, but I will just say that if I got to choose which team I wanted to take into the state meet this year, I would choose the Longhorns,” Zuege said.
The Longhorns will take 14 athletes to Omaha. Last year CCS qualified in 27 events, this year athletes will compete in 31 events.
“There were so many really good performances Thursday,” Zuege said.
Chase County qualified all three relay teams.
One of the Longhorns’ top performances came in the first running event of the day, the 3,200-meter relay.
Zuege said he thought the  4x800 relay was just tremendous.
“We had run a season best of 8:42 going in, and I really thought that if we could be in the low 8:30’s, that should get us qualified. Those guys, Johnny Sosa, Haven Hauxwell, Luis Co and Tristan Jablonski, went out and ran 8:23, which is the same time our team that finished fourth at state last year ran,” Zuege said.
CCS has been chasing Perkins County all season long and finished second behind the Plainsmen.
The Longhorns’ 400-meter relay and 1,600-meter relays each finished first.
The 4x1 substituted Camron Lempke for Mason Wallin, who is battling a hamstring injury, and took the lead down the stretch of the race. Sosa, Tucker Mollendor and Thomas Reeves joined Lempke in the lineup.
The 4x4, Kole Clevenger, Jablonski, Reeves and Easton Fries, continued its winning ways and remained undefeated on the season.
Zuege said the relays still have the potential to drop their times even farther Saturday afternoon in Omaha.
Looking across all events, Zuege said he was  very satisfied with the group that got themselves qualified for the state meet this week.
CCS had one major disappointment when senior Jensen Olsen clipped a hurdle and was disqualified in the 110-meter high hurdles, but otherwise had some good surprises and some really solid performances, Zuege said.
Chase County started off the day with a bang, sweeping first, second and third in both the long jump and triple jump on their way to all qualifying for state.
Kole Clevenger was an inch away from tying Chase County’s long jump record with a leap of 21’11.75”. Tucker Mollendor and James McArthur also qualified in the long jump.
In triple jump, McArthur led the way, followed by Tyler O’Neil and Clevenger.
Zuege said his jumpers were tremendous.
The Longhorns will also send two throwers to Omaha. Noah Rau and Jaret Peterson each had personal best throws. Rau finished second and earned an automatic qualifying spot. Peterson was third and is an additional qualifier. Cooper Dillan placed sixth and was just short of being an additional qualifier.
“It was great to get two discus throwers qualified, and Noah and Jaret will both throw in the last flight on Saturday, putting them right into the mix for a medal. Cooper Dillan in the discus and Ray Murillo in the shot just narrowly missed additional qualifying marks, but all in all our throwers had a really good day,” Zuege said.
Wallin will have a chance to repeat as state champion in pole vault, despite being limited at districts.
“Mason Wallin had to overcome a hamstring injury that he suffered earlier in the week, so he just jumped once at state qualifying height in the pole vault, and then he stopped. We’re confident that we can get Mason relatively healthy for next Saturday,” Zuege said.
Multiple Longhorns qualified in multiple events.
Besides the 1,600-meter relay, Fries earned nods to state with first-place finished in the 110-meter hurdles and 300-meter hurdles, as well as a second-place finish in the 400-meter dash.
Reeves won the 100 and 200-meter dashes, along with running on two relays.
“Of course, Thomas and Easton did what Thomas and Easton do, making it to state in all four events,” Zuege said..
O’Neil also had a big day. In addition to triple jump, O’Neil qualified in both hurdle races.
Jablonski also qualified in three events, two relays and  setting a PR to take second in the 800-meter run.
Sosa, who ran in the state champion 1,600-meter relay last year, ran the 400-meter relay and stepped into the 3,200-meter relay this season.
“H has been just awesome on our relays over the last couple of years, and this year he even jumped into the 4x800 for the first time,” Zuege said.
Haven Hauxwell is also double qualifier, finishing as runner up in the district’s 1,600 and 3,200-meter runs.
It was the fourth year in a row that the district battled Mother Nature and had to deal with rain.
Those experiences and the variety of weather the Longhorns have seen all season helped them prepare, according to Zuege.
“I think this entire season helped prepare us for Thursday’s weather, and certainly our seniors have never run a district meet in weather that wasn’t rainy and at least somewhat windy,” he said, adding, it just seems to be a fact of life at this point.
“I’m probably a bit biased, but I think our kids handle tough situations better than most teams, and that has proven out over the last four years at districts. We simply ask them to go compete like crazy, and let others worry about the weather,” Zuege continued.
Despite the less than ideal conditions, CCS set 12 PRs and three season bests.
After months spent preparing for the post season, Zuge said districts is the meet CCS gears its training towards, so everyone hopes to see a number of PR’s there.
“I was pleased with the PR’s that we saw, but probably not shocked by most of them. Probably the biggest ones that stood out to me were the 4x800 relay and Kole’s long jump, and Tristan’s 800 times both in the open and the relay. We had some really good marks by guys who didn’t qualify, like Scott Hoover in the 300 hurdles and Andrew Wiest in the 3200,” Zuege said.
Now CCS will head to Omaha for Friday and Saturday’s Class C state meet.
This year’s meet will have a new look for two events. The 400-meter dash and 300-meter hurdles will be run as finals only.
Zuege was satisfied with Chase County’s heat and lane assignments.
“Obviously we like to be in the middle of the track, and we generally prefer inside/middle to outside/middle. However, we have a lot of guys in lanes 4,5,6 — so I think we will be just fine out there. We made the fast heat in all three relays, so we should have no excuses as far as lane assignments,” Zuege said.
100 Meter Dash—1st, Thomas Reeves CC 11.06 Q, 4th, Tucker Mollendor CC 11.59.
200 Meter Dash—1st, Reeves CC 22.73 Q, 4th, Cameron Lempke CC 23.61.
400 Meter Dash—1st,Chase Moorhead HER 50.35, 2nd, Easton Fries CC 50.48 Q, 3rd, Kole Clevenger  CC 53.09, 6th, Jonathan Sosa CC 54.45.
800 Meter Run—1st, Mason McGreer PC 2:03.02, 2nd, Tristan Jablonski CC 2:05.01 Q, 3rd, Zach Herbert CC 2:08.90, 5th, Krayton Paisley CC 2:10.95.
1600 Meter Run—1st, McGreer PC 4:47.58, 2nd, Haven Hauxwell CC 4:51.76 Q, 4th, Andrew Wiest CC 4:58.13, 6th, Trevin Moreno CC 5:02.38.
3200 Meter Run—1st, McGreer PC 10:14.38, 2nd Hauxwell CC 10:17.98 Q, 4th, Wiest CC 10:48.57, 7th, Navy Smith CC 11:41.51.
110 Meter Hurdles—1st, Easton Fries CC 14.44 Q, 2nd, Tyler O’Neil CC 15.88 Q.
300 Meter Hurdles—1st, Fries CC 40.16 Q, 2nd, O’Neil CC 42.92 Q, 4th, Scott Hoover CC 43.77.
4x100 Relay—1st, CC (Sosa, Mollendor, Reeves, Lempke) 43.80 Q.
4x400 Relay—1st, CC (Clevenger, Jablonski, Reeves, Fries) 3:29.85 Q.
4x800 Relay—1st, PC 8:21.06, 2nd, CC (Sosa, Hauxwell, Luis Co, Jablonski) 8:23.13 Q.
Shot Put—1st, Theron Miller HEM 54’ 2”, 4th, Ray Murillo CC 48’, 5th, Jaret Peterson CC 46’ 11”.
Discus Throw—1st, Cooper Hill HER 159’ 10”, 2nd, Noah Rau CC 159’ Q, 3rd, Peterson CC 158’ 3” Q, 6th, Cooper Dillan CC 145’ 9”.
High Jump—1st, Wyatt Hayward MOR 5’ 11”, Tie for 7th, Cesar Valencia CC 5’ 5”, 7th, James Bomba CC 5’ 5”.
Pole Vault—1st, Trevor Fuss KIM 13’ 6”, 3rd, Mason Wallin CC 13’ Q, 5th, Spencer Kelley CC 12’, 5th, Malachi Christensen CC 12’.
Long Jump—1st, Clevenger CC 21’ 11.75” Q, 2nd, Mollendor CC 21’ 6.75” Q, James McArthur CC 20’ 6.25” Q .
Triple Jump—1st, McArthur CC 41’ 9” Q, 2nd, O’Neil CC 41’ 7” Q, 3rd, Clevenger CC 40’ 11.75” Q.
Q=State Qualifier
State qualifiers
Thomas Reeves- 100, 200, 4x100 relay, 4x400 relay.
Easton Fries- 400, 100H, 300H, 4x400 relay.
Tristan Jablonski- 800, 4x400 relay, 4x800 relay.
Haven Hauxwell- 1600, 3200, 4x800 relay.
Tyler O’Neil- 110H, 300H, Triple Jump
Noah Rau- Discus.
Jaret Peterson- Discus.
Mason Wallin- Pole Vault.
Kole Clevenger- Long Jump, Triple Jump, 4x400 relay.
Tucker Mollendor- Long Jump, 4x100 relay.
James McArthur- Long jump, Triple Jump.
Jonathan Sosa- 4x100 relay, 4x400 relay.
Cameron Lempke- 4x100 relay.
Luis Co- 4x800 relay.