Longhorns captured 7 wins at Kimball Invitational

The Kimball High track team opened the outdoor season this past Saturday at their own Kimball Invitational and had seven wins on the day with four in the boy's division and three in the girl's division.

Pine Bluffs was a double winner in the team standings, taking the girl's division with 164 points with Potter-Dix runner-up with 99, followed by Hemingford with 68, Kimball 63, Minatare 37 and Banner County 35.

In the boy's division it was Pine Bluffs with 158, Hemingford 108, Kimball 95, Minatare 73, Banner County 32 and Potter-Dix 31.

Hannah Biesecker was a double winner for the Lady Longhorns winning the high jump at 4'8" and taking the long jump with a best jump of 15'5". The talented junior also ran second in the 100 meter dash with a time of 13.9. Jannel Fiehtner got the season underway with a winning hop-skip-jump in the triple jump with a very good mark of 31'9", and finished second behind Biesecker in the long jump at 13'11.75". Kate Reader ran second in the 200 meter dash with a time of 30.00 and teamed up with Raelynn Hinton, Carli Wurdeman and Alanna Kelsch to take third in the 4 x 100 relay with their time of 59.60. Carli Wurdeman finished fifth in the discus with a throw of 92'8" edging out sister Kaitlin who was sixth at 87'3".

A very good day on the track for senior Kyle Spicer, winning the 200 meter dash in 24.30 and nipped right at the tape in the 100 meter dash to finish second in 11.60, with Ernesti of Hemingford winning at 11.50. Spicer also took third in the long jump at 17'2" and ran a leg on the 4 x 100 relay team that took second with a time of 47.20. Other team members were Jacob Jenkins, who ran sixth in the 100 meter dash, Grant Hickman and Colton Mielke.

One of the most exciting races of the day came in the boy's 800 meter run with Kimball's Kaden Adrian getting the gold in a photo finish over Adam Moreno of Minatare with both runners given the same time of 2:19.90. Adrian also ran on the winning 4 x 800 relay team along with Thomas Lenzen, Colton Mielke and Nicholas Thomas-Lewis with the winning time of 10:03.

Jaden Mohr had a very satisfying day in the pole vault with a career personal best vault of 11'0" to win the event, then ran second in the 110 meter hurdles with his time of 20.60, and was fourth in the 300 hurdles in 51.70. Paycen Harroun was third in the vault at 10'6". Thomas-Lewis ran fourth in the 400 in 57.8, Lenzen was third in the 3200 in 12:13, Trevor Ryschon sixth in the 1600 in 6:29.40, Mielke fifth in the high jump at 5'2" and Luis Portillo was sixth in the discus at 89'00.50".

While coach Gene Mohr was pleased with the weather and with the way his athletes performed for the most part, he also was a bit disappointed as he said, "If we had all of our boys eligible for this meet I truly think we would have won the team trophy." The Horns were missing some of their quality athletes for various eligibility rules, and hopefully they will get things handled and be back competing this week when Kimball travels to Bayard on Saturday for the C-D meet, and then Monday when they go to Creek Valley.