Thrice as nice: Rock Bridge boys track three-peats as Class 5 champions
JEFFERSON CITY — It was easy for Casey Hood to think back to last year, after all Rock Bridge remembered just how dominant it was in claiming the 2022 Class 5 boys team state championship.
In order to earn the 2023 team title, the Bruins would have to work for it.
"Last year, we won by 50 something points," Hood, a Rock Bridge senior, said. "If we win this meet, we won the meet. We had to battle to get this one."
Battle the Bruins did. Entering the final event, the Bruins were up 15.5 points and held on.
Rock Bridge came away with its third-straight Class 5 boys state championship at the Adkins Football Stadium on Saturday. The Bruins edged second-place Liberty North 73.5-58 to claim the crown.
Hood was the final leg on the 4x200-meter and 4x100-meter relay teams that won state Saturday, the second day of the Class 3, 4 and 5 state championships. After the preliminary heats on Friday, it was time for the Bruins' dominant relay teams to prove their mettle.
The 4x200 team of Hood, Drevyn Seamon, Bernard Bailey and Riley Rolwing won first place on the heels of Holt and Seamon's quickness. The relay team finished with a time of 1:26.15, edging second-place Lee's Summit West by .55 seconds.
Rolwing and Seamon, two sophomores teaming up with seniors Bailey and Hood, earned massive praise from Hood.
"It's amazing to have two sophomores on the team dominate some people who are done," Hood said. "They left it out on the track."
Wins in the 4x100 and 4x200 relay races were the statements Rock Bridge needed to make, earning 10 points apiece from those first-place wins. Hood later placed second while Seamon placed fifth in the 200-meter dash. Justin Giles placed fifth in the 400-meter dash. Hood also added a fourth-place finish in the 100-meter dash.
These finishes built off what the Bruins' distance runners had already started.
On Friday, Rock Bridge's Andrew Hauser staged perhaps the most dramatic finish from the entire weekend. Trailing in second place by a decent margin heading into the final stretch of the 1600-meter race, Hauser closed the gap and stunned Joplin's Hobbs Campbell by .22 seconds in a photo finish.
Ian Kemey finished fifth in the 1600-meter as Rock Bridge claimed 14 points from the 1600-meter race. Kemey came back the next day and won the 3200-meter race to earn 10 more points for the Bruins.
Banner weekend for Boone County
Rock Bridge's state title headline a successful weekend for Boone County track teams.
Southern Boone finished sixth in Class 3 as a team behind Connor Burns' wins in the 1600-meter and 3200-meter races and a second-place finish in the 4x800-meter relay.
The Centralia girls team finished third in Class 3 as a team behind the 4x400-meter relay team of Olivia Adams, Harper Sontheimer, Rebecca Erisman and Shelby Lewis and the 4x800-meter relay team of Kenedee Moss, Erisman, Annie Robinson and Jozelynn Bostick. Bostick finished eighth in the 1600-meter race, earning Centralia one point which edged Palmyra 36-35 for third place.
The Rock Bridge girls also earned a fourth-place finish in Class 5 as a team. The Bruins 4x400-meter relay team ran a 3:58.57 to take fourth. Grace Parsons earned a fourth-place finish in the 300-meter hurdles, too.
The Hickman girls team finished 12th in Class 5 thanks to Athena Peterson who placed third in the long jump, third in the 300-meter hurdles and second in the triple jump to score 20 of the Kewpies' 22 points. Peterson was also a member of Hickman's 4x200-meter relay team. That team of Athena Peterson, Morgyn Smith, Sophie Leigh and Claire Maland finished seventh and earned two points.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Thrice as nice: Rock Bridge boys track three-peats as Class 5 champions
