ST. LEON – East Central High School was the site of both the boys and girls IHSAA track and field sectionals last week, the ladies competing Tuesday and the boys starting Thursday and returning Friday due to thunderstorms the night prior.

At week's end, the Franklin County Wildcats could boast of several athletes qualifying for this week's regionals – the girls headed to Franklin Community Tuesday and the boys are at Greenfield-Central Thursday.

Senior Jenna Bruns finished third in high jump to keep her season alive. She and teammate Ella Flannery each got up to clear the 5-foot benchmark, a personal record for the latter. Bruns then cleared 5-1. Flannery's jump was good for fourth but among the top 16 finishers at the four feeder sectionals – Franklin Community, New Palestine and Connersville – to advance.

Also earning a call-back was the girls 4x100-meter relay team of Audrey Harper, Madison Merritt, Mackenzie Brzezinski and Flannery.

“The 4x1 has been working hard physically and mentally this season to get their time down as far as possible,” said coach Joe Davidson.

Holding out hope they'd qualify, the girls were happy to learn they did in a time (51.73) that would have won at Connersville by 15 meters. 

Emma Rosenberger placed 4th in pole vault with an FC freshman record of 8-6; she was called back for regional with the effort. The youngster had the same result in long jump. Her PR leap of 15-7.25 was 4th but good enough to move on.

The host Lady Trojans blew away the field in winning with 186 points. FC was 5th with 43.5.

The preliminaries and some finals occurred for the boys Thursday before the storm.

Pierre Demol and Devin Martin ran the 100 prelims. Pierre PR'ed in the event and Devin ran an above-average time but neither qualified for the finals. Phoenix Simons had a good 110 hurdles race but couldn't quite make the final list. In the 200, Christian Stortz and Grif McClure entered the prelims; Grif PR'ed and Stortz moved to the finals.

Meanwhile, Jacob Schatzle was attempting to win long jump as 2-time defending sectional champ. He went over 21 feet his first try and needed only to wait and see if someone could touch his mark. Many tried over the course of two nights but the 21-7.5 held up. Davidson said had it not been for Covid, Schatzle may have been a 4-time jump champ.

Chad Cox, the top seed in high jump, also needed two days to claim his win. Starting at 5-10 with four competitors left, he cleared the height and added a clean leap at the 6-foot notch. Before he could attempt 6-2 a second time, action was postponed. He cleared the height Friday and had one foe left. Clearing 6-4 did the trick and he won with 6-5 after trying three times at 6-7 unsuccessfully.

Stortz returned for the 200 finale, his time of 23.16 good for second behind Lawrenceburg's Brayden Combs' 22.8. Benjamin Riehle of Milan was over a second ahead of Stortz in the 400 (50.37-51.5) but the FC junior also advanced in the one lap.

The Marshall twins, Harmon and Hunter, as well as Adam Grant, ran well in distance competition. Despite some spitting rain Thursday, Grant and Hunter each ran lifetime bests in the 1600. Marshall ran FC's first sub-5-minute race since 2018 and put him in the top-5 for the Wildcat books. Harmon was excellent in the 800, running with the lead pack and taking runner-up with a 5-second PR of 2:05.14.

In Friday's last race, Ha. Marshall, Owen Harvey, Grant and Tyreke Carr gave their best effort of the season in the 4x400. Davidson called it high drama as FC was 2nd in a time of 3:34.49.

Clayton Bolser threw a PR in shot put, Merritt PR'ed in the 200, Madesyn Sunderhaus in the 800 and Brzezinski set a new FC freshman mark in 300 hurdles.