Pekin opens outdoor season with dominating win on track

The Pekin Panthers hosted and won the annual Ruritan Relays on the Davis Eidahl track March 28. Having been postponed once already, the cold and rain didn’t stop the Panthers from running away from the field, winning 15 of the 19 events along the way.

    Pekin had six guys run in the short to mid-distance events, four of which finished third or better. Monico Requena continued to blitz his competition in the 100-meter dash, taking first with a time of 11.11 seconds. In the 200-meter dash, Dayne Eckley followed suit with a 23.98 second run to take first place. Two Panthers finished in the top three in the 400-meter dash with Isaiah Wittrock leading the way.

Wittrock came into the Relays running his 800 at an average of 52.80 seconds, by far the fastest in the field. He did even better with his first outdoor 800 of the season, crossing the finish line at the 49.81 mark. Brayden Sobaski had yet to run an 800 this year and put together a third-place finish with 55.57 seconds.

“With a small meet we ran different boys in different events,” Panthers coach Davis Eidahl said. “You must make track fun by changing up relays and letting your runners run something different. You can also build team depth and find out who can fit into other events.”

The mid to long distance boys picked it up from there, finishing first and second in two of the three events. Chandler Eckley took first in the 800-meter run (2:02.41) and was closely followed by Brady Millikin, who took second with a time of 2:19.15. Millikin then went on to finish first in the 1600-meter run with a time of 5:03.00, edging out teammate Colten Glosser by two seconds. Glosser was narrowly beat in the 3200-meter run by English Valleys’ Jacob Glandon earlier in the day. Glosser took second in the event with a time of 10:53.63.

Jordan Hixson and Devin Fraise competed in the 110-meter hurdles with Hixson coming up just shy of winning the event. The two gave Pekin another 12 points as Hixson finished second (17.52) and Fraise took fourth (18.70). Cole Earnest and Levi Long followed suit in the 400-meter hurdles. Earnest took second (1:03.69), while Long finished in fourth with a time of 1:05.97.

The Panthers went on to win the 4x100-meter relay (44.22), 4x200-meter relay (1:42.25), 4x400-meter relay (3:53.36), 4x800-meter relay (8:57.44), 800-sprint medley (1:46.56), Distance Medley (3:56.03) and Shuttle Hurdle (1:05.00).

Off the track they had equal success, including winning the long jump, shot put and discus. Fraise finished first in the long jump by marking at 18’-10.00”, while Slater Williams took the shot put (45’-1.00”) and discus (127’-1.00”).

Other results are as follows:

100-meter dash: Canyon Decker finished seventh (12.66)

200-meter dash: Canyon Decker finished seventh (26.02)

3200-meter run: Dustin Adams finished fourth (13:54.96)

High Jump: Dustin Adams finished fourth (5’-0.00”)

Shot Put: Skyler Juhl finished sixth (33’-4.50”)

Discus: Logan Kealy finished eighth (82’-3.00”)

As a team, the Panthers accumulated 227 points from the 19 events on the day. The next closest team was Waco, who finished with 83 points. The Panthers traveled down to Davis County on April 3 in hopes of continuing their strong start on and off the track.