A balanced team effort returned a state track and field title to the town of Burlington. Photo by Alan Versaw.
Going into the state meet, defending state champion Wray looked like the team to beat. And, while Wray may have beaten themselves with an unfortunate bit of baton handling in the 4x100, but an inspired effort by a team of Burlington Cougars had Wray in a fight for their lives long before that point in the meet. The final tally showed Burlington with 67.5 points and Wray with 62.
Burlington picked up 21 points in all from sprint relays, but supplemented that total with state titles from Nolan Queen in the discus and Coley David in the 400. Spencer Cure added a second for the Cougars in the 300 hurdles.
Wray was paced by a meet record and title in the 4x200 (1:30.11), a title in the 4x400, and second-place finishes from Luis Huerta in the 200 and Jarret Cure in the 400.
Continuing with the West Kansas theme of the 2A state meet, Baca County finished in a tie for fifth with 38 points, and meet titles were posted by Bryar DeSanti in the 100 and 200 (okay, so Merino is a bit more like West Nebraska than West Kansas), Landry Cogburn of Baca County doubled up the hurdle titles, Logan Ramseier and Luke Terrell of Idalia went 1-2 in the pole vault, and Kyle Carper of Holyoke won the triple jump with a 44-3.75 (-2.3).