Hart of champions: NHS girls win district track

Nevada High School junior Lilly Hart competes in the long jump at the MSHSAA Class 4 District 6 track and field meet Saturday in Carl Junction. Hart placed second in the event and won the triple jump and high jump to help lead the Lady Tigers to their first district team title since 1994.

Photo by Hank Layton | Daily Mail Sports Reporter

CARL JUNCTION — After trying but failing to win the Big 8 Conference championship, the Nevada High School girls track and field team switched up its strategy for the Class 4 District 6 meet Saturday at Bulldog Stadium.

Instead of trying to win every event — and in turn the team standings — the Lady Tigers just tried to earn as many top-four finishes as possible, in order to qualify as many athletes for sectionals as they can.

Needless to say, the plan worked.

A little too well, in fact.

“Sure enough, those kids stepped way up, and everybody we put into places to try and get through to sectionals scored more points than we anticipated they would,” said NHS head coach Ryan Watts, whose squad qualified in a whopping 16 events for the next round on top of earning its first team district title since 1994. “Kind of a two-for-one.”

Nevada finished with 145.50 points on the day (20 more than Webb City), one that began with an hour-long rain delay but ended an hour early thanks to a rolling schedule. Or maybe the Lady Tigers were just that fast.

Junior Brooklyn Kutina-Smith was one of several runners who out-performed her seeding, highlighted by a first-place run in the 400-meter dash. Kutina-Smith crossed the finish line in 1 minute, 3.34 seconds, dropping four seconds off her previous best time and edging out teammate Clara Swearingen, who finished second (1:03.61).

It was not just on the track that Nevada put on a show.

Junior Lilly Hart was unstoppable in the field, winning the triple jump (10.20 meters) and the high jump (1.56 meters), while also placing second in the long jump (4.9 meters).

“That was something very special,” said Watts, who had to ask his father, Robert Watts, Nevada’s head track coach from 1999-2016, if he could remember a Lady Tiger ever qualifying for sectionals in all three jumping events (he could not). “That performance stands out, for sure.”

NHS junior Brooklyn Kutina-Smith (right) hands the baton off to sophomore teammate Kristin Buck during their second-place finish in the 4x200-meter relay (along with Maddy Majors and Clara Swearingen) at the Class 4 District 6 track and field meet Saturday in Carl Junction.

Photo by Hank Layton | Daily Mail Sports Reporter

Juniors Claire Pritchett picked up a silver in the shot put (11.29 meters), Jerica Collins was second in the javelin (30.38 meters), and Laura Kimmell took fourth in the pole vault (8 feet, 3.25 inches) to round out Nevada’s field qualifiers.

Back on the track, another junior, Jade Feller, qualified in four events. She placed third in the 100-meter dash (13.21 seconds), the 200 (27.27 seconds), the 300-meter hurdles (49.3 seconds), and as part of the 4x100-meter relay team along with Kirstin Buck, Maddy Majors, and Bailey Ast (53.11 seconds).

Kutina-Smith, Swearingen, Buck, and Majors, meanwhile, also made up the 4x200-meter relay team that placed second (1:53), while Kutina-Smith, Swearingen, Majors, and Ast comprised the third-place 4x400 team (4:38).

In the 4x800, Swearingen, Ast, Tylin Heathman, and Delanie Hope placed second (10:59) — and Heathman added a fourth-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles (17.34 seconds).

On the boys’ side, Nevada qualified two for sectionals: brothers Dylan Beachler (a senior) and Drew Beachler (a sophomore).

Drew took third in the long jump (21 feet, 6 inches), while Dylan finished fourth in the pole vault (12 feet, 5 1/2 inches).

“It’s pretty cool they were able to swing that. For Drew just being a sophomore and cranking out over 21 feet week after week is really impressive. And then Dylan seems like he makes big improvements when he absolutely has to. He has a flair for the dramatic because he makes us sit on pins on needles,” said Watts, who gave his team a couple of days to celebrate before turning his attention to the Class 4 Sectional 3 meet this Saturday in Camdenton, where the top-four finishers in each event will advance to the state meet. “Going to sectionals is an accomplishment in and of itself, but we had a serious talk about what is going to be there: Marshfield. We did a lot of things right on Saturday and had some special performances, but we’re going to have to do that leaps and bounds more to get on to state.”