Landon Hulsing leads Bureau Valley boys to team title at Rollie Morris

SPRING VALLEY - Landon Hulsing walked away with three individual wins by sweeping the throws and winning the high jump in Saturday’s Rollie Morris invite at Hall High School.

But he was more happy that he helped Bureau Valley win the meet.

“It will help the team,” he said. “That’s all I wanted to do, score as many points as I can for the team. That’s what it comes down to. It’s an individual sport, but it’s also a team sport. It helps out with the team.”

The Storm scored 133 points to top Streator (111½) for the team title. Mendota (64) took fourth, Fieldcrest (61) fifth and Hall (58) sixth in the 12-team field.

The Bureau Valley girls placed second behind Lowpoint-Washburn, which was more than enough to carry the Storm to the combined championship for the second year in a row.

Hulsing recorded PRs in the shot (14.88 meters) and discus (48.67), both state-qualifying marks, and won the high jump at 1.82 meters.

“Shot put was a surprise really. I threw 13.5 last meet; 14.88 was just crazy today, just insane,” Hulsing said. “I was an inch off in high jump. I was going for 6-2.”

The Bureau Valley 4x800-meter relay of Alex Gallardo, Nathan Siri, Adrian Gallardo and Maddox Moore turned in the top time of 8:49.65.

BV’s Andrew Roth placed second in each hurdles event. The Storm also got second place in the 4x200 and 4x400 relays.

“We’ve got pretty good momentum,” Hulsing said. “Once we get more kids hitting times. Our hurdler, Andrew Roth, he hit a state qualifying. That’s good for him. If he can hit that a couple more times, we’ll be looking good. Some of our relays are pretty close. Just hoping we can take as many kids [to state] as we can.”

Fieldcrest’s Caleb Krechel turned a hat trick in distance by winning the 800 (2:03.28), 1,600 (4:48.66) and 3,200 (10:43.10).

Krechel, who also won the 1,600 at last year’s meet, said he just stuck to the plan and it was great to win all three.

“It reassured me that I am in a good spot with my fitness,” Krechel said. “Even after 2½ miles of racing my body felt good, and I knew I would be alright to run one more. I was very happy with how everything went. I think I raced all three events very smart. My coach (Carol Bauer) and I had a specific plan for each event, and I executed each one almost perfectly.

The Knights also got a wins from Michael Beckett, who took the long jump (6.17) and triple jump (12.66).

Greyson Marincic doubled up for St. Bede in the hurdles, winning the 110s in 16.12 seconds and the 300s in 42.26.

Streator’s Isaiah Brown swept the sprints with a 11.29 in the 100 and a 22.69 in the 200. The Bulldogs also got wins from Andrew Warwick in the pole vole (3.91) and the 4x100 (44.77) and 4x200 (1:32.86) relays.

Mendota’s Sebastian Carlos won the 400 (51.56) and took second in the 200 (23.45). The Trojans’ Anthony Kelson picked up a pair of seconds in the 800 (2:04.65) and 1,600 (4:49.86).

Hall had second-place finishes from Jeremy Smith in the triple jump (12.16) and Joseph Perez in the long jump (5.75). Amboy was paced by second-place finishes by Henri Nicols in the 3,200 (10:49.36) and Joel Billhorn in the 400 (52.25).

Alex Rodriguez led Putnam County with second-place finishes in the shot put (14.32) and discus (45.82).