Despite tough day at MVC championships, Highland boys track gets 2 sectionals qualifiers
The track and field gods did the Highland boys track team few — if any — favors Wednesday, May 10.
Despite a tough day in the team competition, however, HHS still managed to produce a pair of sectional qualifiers for next week’s IHSA Class 2A meet.
Highland visited Bethalto and competed in the Mississippi Valley Conference Championship meet and finished a disappointing sixth place with 45 points at Civic Memorial High School. But thanks to the Bulldogs 4x800 relay team and Dallas Mancinas, the team had a couple of positive takeaways from the meet.
Highland’s 4x800 crew finished in first place overall and Macinas took third place in the 800-meter run as the Bulldogs qualified two entries for the sectional meet.
“Things definitely could have gone better, but we did have few bright spots tonight,” Highland coach Joe Shannon said. “We finished sixth out of six teams, so that wasn’t too good, but the bright spots were our 4x800 team won the conference and Dallas Mancinas came back and won third in the 800.”
In the 4x800, the Bulldogs team of Macinas, Ethan Smith, Avery Brock, and Cole Basden prevailed with a season-low time of 8:14, which put them six seconds below the state qualifying standard.
“To go from eight (seconds) over the standard and then we go down to 8:14 — which is six seconds under the standard — I’m really confident that we should be state-bound there next week in the 4x800,” Shannon said.
Mancinas, a junior who ran a 2-minute flat split in the relay, was just as strong in the 800 as he clocked the track with another 2-minute flat performance to grab third place.
“It was a really good night for him,” Shannon said. “Dallas doing a 2-flat twice is really impressive and also that puts him second under what the state standard is, so it gives us a lot of options with Dallas next week.”
Two other top performers narrowly missed the sectional cut as junior Cam Ward placed fourth in the long jump with a leap of 18 feet, 8 inches, and freshman Jack Nimmo turned in a solid showing in the 200-meter dash, taking fourth with a time of 23.45.
Nimmo’s 200-meter run was his third event of the day and his final performance impressed Shannon.
“That was his third event of the day after he did the 4x100 and 4x200 (relays) and to come with fourth place in the 200 with a pretty good time, it gives us a lot to look forward to in the future,” Shannon said.
Sectionals, final tally from MVC meet
Shannon said he feels both the HHS 4x800 team and Mancinas have a pretty good chance to qualify for state Thursday, May 17, at the sectional meet at East Alton Wood River High School.
“I think it doesn’t necessarily take a great day, but it just takes our guys to be consistent and come back and repeat the performance that we had today. And if we could repeat that next week at East Alton Wood River, then those four boys should be qualified for state,” Shannon said.
Shannon said Mancinas will run again in the 800 at sectionals and also will try to qualify for state in another open event which will likely be the 1,600-meter run.
Mascotuah won the MVC championship with 191 points. Triad took second place with 130 points followed by third-place Waterloo (69 points), host Civic Memorial in fourth place (61 points), fifth-place Jerseyville (58 points) and HHS in sixth place.
