Area Boys Ready For State Track Meets

St. Anthony tracksters headed to the Class 1A State Track Meet are, left to right, Dalton Walk (shot put), Ty Kinkelaar (discus and shot put) and Jack Nuxoll (400).

Area boys are ready to head to the Class 1A and Class 2A state track meets scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Eastern Illinois University's O'Brien Stadium.

In Class 1A, there will be athletes competing in five field events and eight running events.

Five will be taking part in the pole vault. Andrew McWhorter (Teutopolis) has the fourth best height in the state at 13 feet, 5 inches. The top vault has been 16-0. Also entered are Tim Moore (Altamont), Keegan Martin (Cowden-Herrick/Beecher City), Donavan Delaney (Altamont) and Dylan Webster (Cowden-Herrick/Beecher City).

Three jumpers will take part in the high jump. Cumberland's Tyson Magee has the fifth best jump in the state at 6 feet, 5 inches. The highest qualifer has gone over the bar at 6-8 1/4. Also entered are Newton's Keith King and T-town's Devin Mette.

In the shot, three area qualifiers are Ty Kinkelaar (Effingham St. Anthony), Dalton Walk (Effingham St. Anthony) and Nicholas Cartright (Newton). Kinkelaar has the seventh best throw at 51-2. The best has been 57-10.

Kinkelaar will also take part in the discus where he has the second best throw of 165 feet, 6 inches. Also entered is Altamont's Nate Brown who has the seventh best throw at 143-5.

Seth Powell (Brownstown/St. Elmo) will be competing in the triple jump.

In the running events, Cumberland's Kort McClelland will be taking part in the 3200 which is run only on Saturday.

Newton's Joseph Stone will run in the 800.

Three area competitors will take part in the 400 and those include Jack Nuxoll (St. Anthony), Dillon Howard (Cumberland) and Myles Gerhardt (Cumberland). Howard has the third best time in the state at 50.21 seconds.

Altamont's Jesus Flores will take part in the 1600 while Newton's Rhett Kocher will compete in the 200.

 Area teams will be competing in three relay events. Newton will have a team in all three of those runs. The Eagles will compete in the 400 relay with team members Mitch Bierman, Rhett Kocher, Hunter Gray and Joseph Stone. They also have an 800 relay team of Bierman, Trenton Duncan, Gray and Kocher. The Eagles will then take part in the final event of the day, the 1600 relay. Team members are Ben Carr, King, Duncan and Stone.

Cumberland will have a 400 relay team of Ryan Yaw, Magee, Gerhardt and Howard. The Pirates are also entered in the 1600 relay with Gerhardt, Yaw, Cole Willenborg and Howard.

The preliminaries will be held Thursday with field events getting underway at 10 a.m. and running events at 11 a.m.

Effingham High School will have four athletes competing in the Class 2A State Meet.

Terrence Hill will be taking part in two events, the high jump and the 100. Hill has a height of 6 feet, 3 inches in the high jump and has turned in a time of 11.09 seconds in the 100. The top time in the 100 is 10.66.

Alec Morrisey will be competing in the pole vault where he has a height of 13-1. The top height is 15-3.

Kody Line will take part in the high jump where he has a height of 6-3.

Jacob Donaldson will be running the 800. He has the 10th best time in the state at 1:59.27 minutes. The top time is 1:54.48.

The preliminaries for Class 2A are scheduled for Friday with field events beginning at 8 a.m. and running events at 9 a.m.

Qualifiers from the preliminaries in Class 1A, 2A and 3A will advance to the finals scheduled for Saturday. The opening ceremony will be at 9:30 a.m. with the field events and running events both beginning at 10 a.m.