Platte County senior Andrew Early jumped into the 1-mile run for the first — and probably only — time this season and delivered a memorable showing last Friday in the Falcon Relays at North Kansas City District Activities Complex in Kansas City.
Platte County senior Andrew Early leads the 1-mile run during the Falcon Relays earlier this month at North Kansas City District Activities Complex in Kansas City.
In a competitive field, Early ended up third in a personal-best 4 minutes, 44.30 seconds. He qualified for Class 4 Sectional 4 in the 1,600 and 3,200 a year ago but only advanced to the Class 4 Missouri State Track and Field Championships in the longer of the two events. The mile is about 9.3 meters longer than the 1,600, and Early only ended up about a second slower in this mile than his career-best effort in the more traditional metric-measured race.
The meet focuses on field events and relays for the most part.
Platte County also received top individual showings from junior Cameron Wolfe in the discus (personal-best 43.60 meters) and senior sprinter Victor Sewankambo in the long jump (6.36 meters). He finished just in front of senior teammate Cole Rhoden, who placed fourth at 6.24 meters.
In addition, Platte County junior Andy McClure (12.13 meters) and senior Zay’Quan Hall (12.07) cracked the top five and came in fourth and fifth in the triple jump.
Platte County had third-place finishes in three of seven relays, accounting for the only top-five showings. The Pirates were strong in the 4×400 (3:37.67) with senior Dylan Bietz, juniors Bryan Jennings and Tristan Magnuson and sophomore Connor Currence and the 4×800 (8:37.90) with senior Jace Trimble, junior Ryan McCoy, junior Aspyn Hutchinson-Nelson and Currence.
The other third-place showing came from the 200-200-400-800 meter sprint medley relay of seniors Trevor Scott and Early, junior Blaise Vertin and freshman Brett Mueller.
Kearney Throwers Meet
In a nine-team event featuring about 200 individual participants, Platte County posted a pair of top-10 finishes Monday in Kearney. Mitchell Kelley, a senior set a personal-best of 35.89 meters to finish 10th out of 36 to mark a distance in the javelin, while senior Jaisyn House placed ninth in the discus at 3.62 meters.
