By GREG MENGELT

The News and Tribune

Scottsburg won the boys’ Faulkner Relays title, with Salem taking the girls’ crown Saturday, but the story at Clarksville High School on Saturday was Silver Creek’s Jack Eckert.

Eckert set meet and school records in the 300-meter hurdles and the pole vault.

The Dragon senior went 39.26 seconds in the 300 hurdles, less than a week after going under 40 seconds for the first time ever. He and junior Andrew Hoke combined to win the pole vault title. Eckert did his part by leaping a personal-best 15 feet, 1 inch.

"The hurdles went really well,” Eckert admitted.

"He is really come along lately in the 300 lows,” said Al Eckert, Eckert’s coach and father. “He didn’t really start running it until last year. I was really pleased with that time.”

Eckert said he nearly cleared 15-6 on his final vault.

“I’m really happy with the pole vault, because I wasn’t anywhere close to 15-6 last year,” Jack Eckert said.

“Coach (Todd) Balmer has really done a nice job with Jack, working with him the last couple weeks,” Al Eckert said.

Scottsburg outscored Salem and defending champion Clarksville. The Generals were short-handed when two of their top athletes were suspended for one meet due to a disciplinary issue.

“I thought that we ran really well,” Clarksville coach Darrell Kingery said. “We were missing a couple of our better runners today, but I thought everybody else stepped up and did a nice job. We had three or four events we couldn’t enter, which really hurt us.”

Despite missing its top sprinter, Clarksville got a win from its 800 relay team of Zach Williams, Michael Spalding, Justin Dixon and Brent Lewellen.

The Charlestown combination of Aaron Daniel and Josh King helped the Pirates to a fourth-place finish. Daniel and King combined to win the high jump and the 300 hurdles. Both were also on the victorious 1,600 relay team along with Daniel Taylor and Kyle Jenkins.

Defending girls’ champion Providence finished second to Salem.

The Pioneers only had one winning relay team — the 800 relay — but had seven second-place finishes to edge Henryville for the runner-up spot.

Providence coach Jeanne Luther said if her team had been at full strength, she believes it would have won the event.

“We had a lot of kids out,” said Luther, citing injuries, illness and athletes who were out of town as some of the reasons why. "We would have won if we had everybody here. It wouldn’t have even been close I don’t think."

Henryville also had one winning combination — Allison Knox and Abby Taylor’s combined effort in the high jump.

New Washington, which finished fifth, had the second-most champions to Salem. Kriston Sarver was part of four of the five Mustang wins. She combined with Katelyn Walker to win the high jump, fellow freshman Alicia Harrod to win the 100 and was a member of two winning relay teams — the girls’ 400 relay and the freshman boys-girls combined 400 relay.

Molly Voyles and Rachel Clemons combined to win the pole vault and long jump for sixth-place Silver Creek.

 

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