Liberal High School boys track polled 136 points for a first place team finish at Tuesday’s Great Bend Invitational. Of the six teams competing, Great Bend boys collected 121 team points and a second seed while Manhattan, Dodge City, Hays and Hoisington finished in order in the final standings. The Panther girls took fifth place with 58 team points and seven points above Liberal who finished last with 51. Dodge City was the top finisher in the girls division with 147 points.

All three boys relay teams had season best times at Tuesday’s meet.

Turning to the boys 4x800 meter relay, the quad of Eric Vasquez, Isaiah Davis, Quinton Elliot and Mason YellowWolf placed as the top team with a time of 8:33.57. Cal Marshall, Antonio Carrasco, Ty Yager and Trey Hurd placed second in the 4X100 relay while Jeff Muiruri, Davis, YellowWolf and Yager took bronze in the 4x400 relay at 3:35.72.

Yager won gold in the 100 meter dash with a sprint time of 11.38 and placed second in the 300 intermediate hurdles at 42.95. Yager’s finish in the hurdles bested teammate Jeff Muiruri by less than a second as Muiruri finished third at 43.43. Carrasco was the top runner in the 400 meter timing in at 49.87. Kerby Depenbusch won the 3200 run and clocked in at 10:08.37 and grabbed the second place slot in the 1600 meter at 4:38.64. Cal Marshall finished in third place in the 200 meter dash at 24.30

In the field, Jayce Brack took top honors in the shot put and discus with throws of 57 ft. and 167.4 ft. respectively.

In girls competition,  Camryn Dunekack was the top runner in the 400 meter run with a time of 1:01.69. Kaylan Lagerman won silver in the 800 meter run with a time of 2:30.45.

In field events, Shelby Tracy was second in the long jump with a leap of 15.6 ft.

Other girls performances:

High Jump

Camryn Dunekack; 3rd place with a jump of 5’ 2”

4 x 800m Relay

3rd place in a time of 10:27.14 (Mariah Stein, Karen Razo, Mary Williams, Kaylan Lagerman )

4 x 400m Relay

3rd place in a time of 4:19.33 (Lagerman, Fry, Moyers, Dunekack)

“We had some ups and downs in our meet,” said coach Todd Kaiser. “We had some of our athletes who put in some good performances with some of our individual events and all of our relays ran their best times of the season.”

“On the downside, we had some events, where we have previously been getting points, that didn’t come through for us which was a little disappointing,” he added. “We just have to keep working to get better and do everything we can to be at our best when it’s time to compete.”

“We had a quick turnaround from our meet at Wichita State on Friday and we didn’t get much work in on Monday,” Kaiser continued. “This was our fourth meet of the season in roughly a three week time period.  The kids are a little tired.  Now we have a week and a half before our next meet at Buhler to get in some good work and to recover a bit at the halfway point of our season.”

“We’ve had a good first half of the season and we need to keep working hard and continue to get better,” the coach said. “The last half of our season, we’ll be competing in some tough meets but I’m confident the kids are up for the challenge.”