A marvelous season for Columbus Wildcat boys’ track and field concluded with a second-place finish as a team at this year’s Class 1A state championships in Des Moines. Columbus scored 52 points, just eight behind champion Lisbon, and finished with eight individual medalists as well as two relay teams that finished in the top eight to highlight a strong showing from Southeast Iowa Super Conference teams.

The weekend at Drake Stadium was a stellar final showcase for Triston Miller. The Columbus senior won the state championship in the 110-meter hurdles, finishing the finals in a time of 14.35 seconds. Miller set a new state Class 1A state record when he ran his prelims race in 14.12 seconds.

Miller also took second place in the high jump, leaping six feet six inches but seeing New London’s Kade Benjamin clear the bar one inch higher. Miller also took part in two relay teams. Along with fellow senior Jeff Hoback, junior Kaden Amigon and sophomore Riley Kaalberg, Miller and the Wildcats set a new 1A state record by completing the four-by-100-meter relay in 42.69 seconds during prelims. They ran the relay even faster in the finals, but their time of 42.42 was still three-tenths of a second behind Lisbon.

Miller joined Kaalberg, Dante Zuniga and Alexander Rees to earn third place in the shuttle hurdles relay, while Amigon was also third in the 200 meters and the long jump. Amigon’s fourth medal of the weekend was a seventh-place finish in the 100, while Hoback was eighth. Junior Russell Coil adds medals for taking fifth in the discus and eighth in the shot put.

Two other Super Conference athletes won state titles in Des Moines. Winfield-Mount Union junior Cam Buffington is the 1A boys’ long jump champion, winning with a leap of 21 feet eight inches. Highland junior Sarah Burton won the girls’ state title by jumping 17 feet eight-and-a-quarter inches. The other medalist for the Wolves was junior Gabriel Hemsworth, who was eighth in the 400 hurdles, while Burton had the same finish in the 100 for the Huskies.

Three relay teams won medals for the Lone Tree girls, including freshman Ava Christofferson and sophomores Avery Morarie, Rylee Shield and Vivian Zaruba taking fourth in the 4-by-200. Christofferson, Shield, Zaruba and senior Riley Krueger were fifth in the 4-by-100, while Christofferson, Shield, Zaruba and Sophie Bell were sixth in the sprint medley.

The best finish for the WACO Warriors came from senior Odee Shtefanchuk, who wins the bronze in the discus. Fellow senior Simeon Reichenbach was sixth in the long jump and seventh in the 110 hurdles.