Highland’s Sharpe wins gold in 1,600-meter run at Class 2 state track meet, claims three other medals

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Chevie Sharpe made a haul at the Missouri Class 2 girls state track and field championships.

The Highland junior finished the 1,600-meter run in 5 minutes, 15.8 seconds to set a school record and bring home a state championship. She finished fourth in the 400 and 800. North Platte’s Lindsay Ramsey won both of those events.

Sharpe anchored the Cougars’ 4×400 relay — teaming with Ali Lundberg, Eva Logsdon and Hannah Ritterbusch — that finished third behind North Platte and South Shelby. The Cougars’ time of 4 minutes, 9.3 seconds was four seconds behind North Platte and two seconds behind South Shelby. 

Bailie Crist finished fourth in the javelin with a school-record throw of 122 feet, 5 inches. The Cougars finished sixth as a team at the meet.

South Shelby finished one spot ahead of Highland in the team standings, thanks to Charlie Roush in the throwing events and multiple school records by the Lady Birds’ relay teams.

Roush finished second in the discus with a throw of 128 feet, 7 inches. Iberia’s Adara Langatau won the event with a toss of 132 feet, 1 inch. Roush’s throw of 34 feet, 6.25 inches was good for eighth in the shot put, and she finished 10th in the javelin.

The Lady Birds’ 4×400 relay team of Belle Roush, Samentha Koper, Gracynn Lanpher and Callie McWilliams set a school record time of 4 minutes, 7.87 seconds, good for second. That same quartet also set a school record in the 4×800 with a time of 10 minutes, 12.36 seconds and finished sixth.

Koper broke a 45-year-old school record in the 800 meters with a mark of 2 minutes, 21.13 seconds, beating Diane Hirrlinger’s previous record by more than two seconds. Koper finished third behind Ramsey and Skyline’s Shelby Redd.

McWilliams, the reigning state champion in the triple jump, finished fourth behind a trio of upstart underclassmen in her defense of her state title. Fayette freshman Rylan Roberts won the event with a jump of 38 feet, .75 inches, a foot longer than McWilliams’ best jump of 36 feet, 11.5 inches. Chaffee sophomore Carly Anne Cossou finished second, and Hayti sophomore Kalaiha Jones finished third.

Other area individual medalists were Monroe City’s Bradi Keller, who finished sixth in the pole vault and 10th in the 3200, and Mark Twain’s Ella Moss, who finished seventh in the triple jump and eighth in the long jump.

On the boys side, a pair of South Shelby throwers earned top-three finishes. In the shot put, Aadon Magruder’s throw of 53 feet, 9.75 inches was good for second, while Gabe Bowen finished third in the javelin with a 167-foot, 11-inch throw. Their Cardinals teammate, senior Owen Stueve, finished seventh in the long jump. South Shelby finished 17th in the 55-team field.

Highland’s 4×100 and 4×200 relay teams ran in Saturday’s finals, finishing fifth and sixth, respectively. Charlie Evans, Christopher Gaus, Porter Peters, and Lane Hinton ran the 4×100 in 44.36 seconds. The 4×200 team of Evans, Gaus, Xavier Santiago, and Hinton finished in 1 minute, 32.71 seconds. Gaus finished 13th in the long jump.

Monroe City sophomore Wyatt DeGrave narrowly missed a state title in the high jump. He cleared the bar at 6 feet, 3.25 inches to finish second, while Salisbury junior Patrick White cleared 6 feet, 5 inches to claim the state title.

Mark Twain senior Sam Northcutt finished seventh in the 800 with a time of 2 minutes, .76 seconds.