As area teams competed at the Class 1A track and field state championships last week at Drake Stadium in Des Moines, the big headliner was Winfield-Mount Union’s Kohlby Newsom winning an individual state title.

The senior was the Class 1A champion of the 800-meter run with a time of one minute 53.83 seconds for the Wolves, becoming the 13th state winner in WMU track history.

It was once again the Columbus Wildcat boys who put on the most impressive team display. Columbus finished second in Class 1A in the team standings, scoring 30 points and finishing only 24 behind the state champions from Lisbon thanks to a total of seven state medals.

The best finish for the Wildcats came from Lamar Ceant, who finished second place in the 110-meter hurdles run. After a runner-up finish in the preliminary heats with a time of 14.77 seconds, the sophomore was a half-second faster in the finals but unfortunately would be only three-one-hundredths of a second behind state champion Gabe Funk of Lennox.

Junior teammate Alexander Rees took fourth in that same race in 14.42 seconds after finishing fifth in prelims. The pair would also win medals in the open 200 meters, with Ceant finishing seventh in the finals in 22.88 seconds after taking sixth in prelims and Rees crossing the finish line in 23.03 to take eighth in the finals after running the seventh-fastest time in prelims.

They would also help two Columbus relay teams come home with hardware. Ceant, Rees and seniors Riley Kaalberg and Johnathan Miranda would be the runner-up team in the shuttle hurdles relay, combining to clock in at just over one minute flat in the finals but still three-tenths of a second behind the state champions from ACGC. The quartet had finished seventh in prelims.

Ceant, Rees, Kaalberg and senior Juan Chairez would add a fourth-place finish in the 4-by-100-meters in 43.52 seconds, a few tenths of a second slower than their third-place time in prelims.

Senior Ty Muniz would round out the Wildcats’ medal count by finishing eighth in the 3,200-meter run in 9:51 as Columbus finishes top-five in team scoring at state for a second time in the last three years.

The Lone Tree Lion girls would have a solid week at the Class 1A state meet thanks to the relay team of sophomore Addison McCullough, junior Ava Christofferson and seniors Vivian Zarbua and Rylee Shield.

The quartet would earn fourth place in the 4-by-100 in 50.49 seconds after also finishing fourth in prelims, and they would also take fifth in the sprint medley in 1:51 and seventh in the 4-by-200 in 1:47. Shield also finished fourth in the open 400 in just under a minute.

The WACO Warriors also came away from Des Moines with three state medals. Senior Louden Huisenga was sixth in the boys’ high jump by clearing six feet one inch, and he would run with senior Gage Samo, junior Jude Dykstra and sophomore Hayden Shelman to finish eighth in the distance medley relay in 3:35.

WACO freshman Bren Graber added an eighth-place medal in the girls’ high jump by getting over five feet, while Winfield-Mount Union nabbed three medals, as Newsom added a fourth-place finish in the boys’ 400 in 50.11 seconds to his state title and freshman Kynlee Buffington was seventh in the girls’ long jump for the Wolves by leaping 16 feet eight inches.

The Hillcrest Academy Raven boys would earn a pair of state medals. Junior Owen Scott earned a second straight medal in the long jump by finishing third at 21’7″, while sophomore Kale Bailey was fourth in the high jump after getting past 6’1″.