After a rough start to the week with the weather for spring sports, mother nature finally played well and gave us great weather for spring sports and it produced great performances by 11 area schools competing at the Hiawatha track meet on Thursday.

The host Redhawks and fellow Big Seven school Sabetha took home the team crowns on the day with the boys Redhawks winning their team title by 38 points, while the Sabetha girls captured their team crown by 70 points.

In the boys competition, Sabetha took home a second place finish behind 97 total points, while Riverside was five points behind in third with 92 points. The rest of the team finishes were as follows: 4th -- Holton (84.5), 5th -- Horton (58), 6th -- Falls City (55.5), 7th -- Pleasant Ridge (50), 8th -- ACCHS (15), 9th -- Maur Hill-Mount Academy (14), 10th -- Immaculata (6) and 11th -- Troy (1).

On the girls side, Holton took home second place with 100 points on the day, while Riverside followed in third place with 74 points. The rest of the team finishes were as follows: 4th -- Hiawatha (64), 5th -- Pleasant Ridge (49), 6th -- Falls City (44), 7th -- ACCHS (32), 8th -- Maur Hill-Mount Academy (24), 9th -- Horton (22), 10th -- Troy (10) and 11th -- Immaculata (7). 

Hiawatha dominated the first place performances in the boys competition winning seven of the 19 events on the day at their home Invitational. Leading the Redhawks was Conner Bigham and Denzel Chilcoat who won a pair of individual medals on the day. For Bigham he took home the 800 meter run title (2:07.62) and won the high jump (5-10). While, Chilcoat sprinted his way to wins in both the 100 meters (11.3) and 200 meters (23.80). Redhawks, also took home the running event crown for the 4x800 meter relay behind a time of 8:45.77. The remaining two golds for Hiawatha came at the hands of Quentin Overdick and Josh Hinkle in the throwing events, as Overdick tossed the discus 136-08 to get the win and Hinkle won the javelin with a toss of 147-05.

Holton took home the second most first place finishers on the boys side, despite only finishing fourth overall as a team. Wildcats were lead by their relay teams who won the 4x100 and 4x400 meter relays with times of 45.30 and 3:40.20, respectively. Dakota Colhouer and Brendon Hampton took home the other two first place finishes for the Wildcats winning the 400 meter dash (54.70) and 110 meter hurdles (15.74), respectively.

Third place boys team, came home with three first place finishers on the day with Andrae McGaughy taking home two event titles winning the 300 meter hurdles (43.96) and leaping to the win in the triple jump (41-06.25). Dillon Logston took home the pole vault title with a vault of 10-00.

Pleasant Ridge was the only other boys squad to win mutliple first place finishes on the days competition with Tony Weber winning both the 1600 and 3200 meter runs with times of 4:50.08 and 10:24.8, respectively. 

Horton, Troy and Falls City each took home a first place finish on the day, also. For the Chargers it was Marcus Platt winning the long jump (19-06.5), while the Troy Trojans won the 4x100 meter throwers relay (50.74) and Falls City Tiger, Cord Huettner won the shot put (47-09.25).

In the girls side of competition the first place finishes were spread more evenly between a few teams with Sabetha leading the way with five first place finishes, Hiawatha and Holton each capturing four first place finishes and Riverside nabbing three first places. Falls City and ACCHS accounted for the remaining three first place finishes.

To lead the lady Bluejays on the day it was the relay teams who took homt eh 4x100 and 4x400 meter relay crowns with times of 52.43 and 4:31.17. The remaining three gold medals came in field events for Sabetha. Heidi Heiniger took the javelin throw title (144-03), Megan Garrett won the high jump (4-10) and Claire Meyer won the pole vault (7-06) for the Bluejays.

For the host, Redhawks they were lead by Jordan Puvogel home took home the best individual performance of the meet winning three events the 800, 1600 and 3200 meter runs. Puvogel won the 800 with a time of 2:24.30, while winning the 3200 behind a time of 12:32.86. In the 1600, Jordan posted a time of 5:21.80 to win the event and almost set the school record as she was a tenth of a second shy of the record. Hiawatha did set one record on the day as Emily Gartner bested her previous record in the shot put with a toss of 39-06.50 to win the event.

The Holton Wildcats were lead by a pair of wins by Brylee New in the 100 and 200 meter dashes with times of 13.27 and 27.92. Her teammates, Connor Strader and Kyrstie Miller both tallied wins also on the day winning the 400 meter dash (1:00.08) and the discus (111-03), respectively.

Riverside captured three first place finishes with Connor Schultz leaping to wins in the triple jump and long jump with leaps of 36-02.50 and 16-07.75, respectively. While the Cyclones won the 4x100 meter throwers relay behind a time of 59.55.

Falls City Tigers took home a sweep in the hurdles competition behind the performance of Claire Poppe who won the 100 and 300 meter hurdles with times of 17.90 and 52.17, respectively. While, ACCHS took home their first place finish in the 4x800 meter relay with a time of 10:33.30. 

It was a great day for track and field for many area teams in the Kanzaland area.

For full results from the Hiawatha Invitational -- click here.