Boys' State Track: Record-breaking night

By BRANDON HURLEY

Sports Editor 

sports@beeherald.com

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Success isn’t supposed to come this quickly. 

But for Greene County’s Carter Morton, a season’s worth of visible progress has led him to the pinnacle. 

The Ram freshman broke yet another school record en route to clearing 6-02 and winning the boys’ high jump Thursday at the Denison state qualifying meet, securing him a spot at next week’s state meet in Des Moines. 

Morton had previously set the Greene County record back at the Ram Relays with a height of 5-10 which was then broken by teammate Kolin Reed, who cleared six feet a few weeks later. 

The extra motivation helped Morton reach the state meet in his first season at the high school level. 

Sergeant Bluff-Luton’s Sam DeMoss finished a distance second, clearing six feet Thursday to assure Morton the victory. 

“It was great to see Carter gain confidence in the high jump as he went along,” Greene County head coach Dean Lansman said. “Great example of staying relaxed and not letting nerves get to you, which I thought was very neat to see from a freshman.”

The 4x100-meter relay quartet of Logan Lansman, Chase Stoline, Colby Kafer and Nick Schroeder did not earn an automatic bid but is sitting pretty after finishing third but in 44.5, which placed them top 13 in the state and in line for an at-large bid. The top two place-winners in each state qualifying event head to state in 3A while eight of the remaining place-winners are selected as well. 

SB-L’s quartet won the 4x100-meter with a time of 43.62 while Harlan came in second at 44.46. The final list of state qualifiers should be announced after the weekend. 

Sixth-ranked Sergeant Bluff-Luton won the team title with 178 points while fourth-ranked Glenwood came in second with 145. Atlantic (110 points), Harlan (80 points) and Denison-Schleswig (75) rounded out the top five. Greene County finished eighth out of eight teams with 38 points. 

“Seeing what our district was like going into last night, I’m happy we were able to get some [events] into state,” Lansman said. “We always stress [how] we want to be better at the end of the season than where we started. You couldn’t have asked for a better night to run weather wise and we were able to set some season bests and PRs, which was great to see.”

The 2017 state meet is set for May 18-20 at Drake Stadium in Des Moines. The 3A boys’ high jump is set for 2 p.m. Thursday, May 18 while the 4x100-meter prelims are scheduled for 6:40 p.m. Friday, May 19. 

A full breakdown of state qualifiers along with lane assignments and seedings should be released over the weekend. 

Look for a more detailed recap along with state previews in next Thursday’s print edition of the Jefferson Herald sports.