Platte County juniors Adam Gisler, Braiden Stevens, Adeboye Akande and Ty Christopher have limited opportunities to run the 4×100-meter relay and don’t plan to waste any time. They combined for another victory in Friday’s Kearney Classic Invitational and did so in record-setting fashion.
Gisler, Stevens, Akande and Christopher came in first at 41.91 seconds out of Lane 5 at Kearney High School, posting the second-fastest time in the state for the event this season.
Platte County not only finished nearly a second and a half in front of runnerup Warrensburg (43.16) but also set the program-record, shattering the mark this group posted last season at Class 5 Sectional 4. The Pirates have posted the four fastest times in school history in the last four times running the event, mostly with the same lineup.
The 41.91 mark in the 4×100 currently ranks No. 2 in the entire state this season behind Lee’s Summit West’s 41.88 at the Grandview Invitational on April 9.
In addition, Stevens set a personal-best of 10.82 to win the open 100 with Christopher third at 11.23. Stevens went under 11 seconds for the third time in his career, second this season, and bettered the mark of 10.89 he put up in a breakout sophomore season that included an individual berth in the Class 5 Sectional 4 meet in the event.
Akande added a victory in the 200 with a PR of 22.34, shaving 0.29 of a second off of a time he posted in Platte County’s home junior varsity meet 10 days earlier. He continues to excel at running the curve on the third leg of the 4×100, matching up to his work in the 200. Gisler runs the lead leg for the Pirates with Stevens second and Christopher as the anchor.
However, the true depth for Platte County’s current sprinters showed in a runnerup finish for the 4×200 relay of Akande, seniors Caden McGhee and Frailyn Lene and sophomore Noah Omoike. The Pirates came in second at 1:29.70, second-fastest this season, while experimenting with different combinations.
Previously a standout hurdler, McGhee came back this year after missing his entire junior season while rehabbing a torn ACL suffered in a football game the previous fall and now looks to focus more on straight sprints. Lene earned a role as a breakout junior, while Omoike ran in place of Akande in the 4×100 at last month’s Darwin Rold Invitational and helped post a time of 42.57, which just missed the school record.
Platte County’s on-track performances helped accrue 143 points to take the team title in the Kearney Classic. The Pirates ended up winning three of four relays and also posted individual victories in the 300-meter hurdles and 3,200 to end up one point clear of the hosts in the final standings.
In the 4×800, Platte County easily set a season-best of 8:16 with a team of seniors Josh Fraker and Tanner Jenks and juniors Blake Herron and Elijah Jackson. Fraker and Herron return from last year’s unit that nearly earned a state berth and threatened the school record of 7:50.03. The Pirates have rebuilt the long-distance team with Jenks and Herron also placing back to back as winner and runnerup of the 3,200.
Jenks ran the race for the first time this season and posted a career-best of 9:45.72, while Herron followed with his fastest time in two starts this spring and a PR of 9:51.19. Jackson added a third-place finish in the 800 with a career-best mark of 2:00.11.
Fraker continued to make contributions for Platte County spanning the 200, 400 and 800 with his current focus on the two middle-distance open races and relays. He finished second in the 400 with a career-best 49.04, while junior Jackson Goodale came in second at 49.24, going under 50 seconds for the first time in his career.
Those now stand as the top two in Platte County history not attributed to school-record holder Naron Rollins in available records. He set the mark at 47.85 at state in 2012.
Fraker and Goodale have been part of the best 4×400 relay teams in Platte County history the past two seasons, repeatedly helping lower the program-best mark. The Pirates also expected senior Brayden Eschliman back from those units, but he suffered a torn ACL in football this past fall, brining to an end his high school track career.
On Friday, Fraker and Goodale teamed with sophomore Jack Johnson and Christopher to run a season-best of 3:19.60 and win the 4×400 by nearly 4 full seconds over Warrensburg. Johnson spent much of last season on the top relay unit for the Pirates until Goodale returned for the postseason after being out much of the regular season due to an abductor muscle injury.
Christopher looks to stretch to a longer distance to help possibly rebuild the 4×400 and push last year’s school-record mark from the state preliminaries of 3:17.88. The Pirates posted the top qualifying time and then finished second in the finals but lost Connor Currence to graduation and Eschliman to injury.
Johnson made an impressive season debut in a comeback from recent shoulder surgery. He won the 300 hurdles in 39.54, a PR after never going under 41 seconds but qualifying for Class 5 Sectional 4 in a standout freshman season. He now owns the sixth-fastest time in Platte County history for the event according to available records and just a little over a second off of Jason Ciemiega’s mark of 38.49 set back in 2006.
Platte County’s best finish in field events came from Stevens in the long jump, and he placed third with a PR of 6.42 meters. His previous best came at 6.39 meters as a sophomore.
On Monday, Platte County returned to Kearney for the Kearney Throwers Meet and junior Quinn Lightle led the Pirates, coming in fifth in the shot put with a mark of 12.79 — just off the PR he set to open this season at 12.84. Kyler Parker, a sophomore, threw 13.16 at the Kearney Classic Invitational and also placed fifth in the event.
