Spread out over two long days complete with a lengthy weather delay, Platte County’s select group of qualified entrants for the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays brought home multiple medals, a unique school record and a memorable experience. The Pirates took eight seniors spread across seven events to compete this past weekend against a national field at Mike A. Myers Stadium and Soccer Field on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin.
Platte County’s 4×100-meter relay of Adam Gisler, Ty Christopher, Adeboye Akande and Braiden Stevens finished as the overall runnerup Saturday afternoon, while Cale Buntz collected a third-place medal in the javelin. The 1,600 sprint medley relay with Christopher, Akande, Jackson Goodale and Elijah Jackson set a school record and came in fourth.
Stevens and Gisler also competed in the open 100, but neither qualified for the finals. However, the potential race workload led Platte County to scratch out of the 4×200. Adi Benninghoff, the Pirates’ lone representative on the girls side, ran in the preliminaries of the 100 hurdles.
All entrants had to meet a certain qualifying standard to compete in the annual meet that features both college and high school competitions.
Already the fastest 4×100 team in Missouri history, Gisler, Christopher, Akande and Stevens ran a season-best 41.45 in Saturday morning’s prelims but qualified with the sixth-fastest time. Rain then interrupted the meet, and four qualifiers ended up not running in the delayed finals.
On a wet track, Platte County ran 42.09 and came in second to El Cerrito (California), which posted a winning time of 41.52.
Gisler, Christopher, Akande and Stevens have run the event together since their sophomore seasons at Platte County. They combined for a 40.83 at last year’s Suburban Conference White Division Championships for a career-best and the fastest time ever recorded by a Missouri school. The Pirates eventually finished as state runnerup to Lee’s Summit.
A fifth-place state medalist as a junior, Buntz threw 53.85 meters — a mark better than his first school record effort of 52.54 meters from last postseason. However, he went 55.14 meters at the season opening Liberty North Time Trials for his current career-best.
Christopher, Akande, Goodale and Jackson now own the 1,600 sprint medley relay school record in an uncommon event. Platte County ran 3:28.74 and finished less than .20 of a second out of third place with Christopher and Akande running the 200s, Goodale the 400 and Jackson the 800.
Like Christopher and Akande, Stevens and Gisler also ran two events with both entered in the 100. Stevens went in with seeing making him a candidate to reach the finals, and he came out of the blocks strong in his race only to have a runner in an outside line disqualified for a false start.
On the second start, Stevens didn’t have the same beginning but still posted an 10.48 — just off his career-best of 10.38 from last year’s Class 5 Sectional 4 meet and his season-best of 10.46. However, he ended up just .01 of a second out of the ninth and final qualifying spot.
Gisler ran an 11.15.
Benninghoff continued a three-meet progression of faster times and posted the No. 38 mark in prelims at a season-best 15.20. She continues to chase Jan Herndon’s hand-held school record of 14.93 set in 1983. Benninghoff’s career-best of 14.95 came on a modern standard fully automated timing (FAT) system.
