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SENIORITIS

WEBSTER CITY – When it came to individual events, there was no one in an adversarial uniform that Tanner Hoveland couldn’t beat on the Bob Buckley Track Tuesday evening.

It took a teammate to clip him and then it was by a slim margin.

Hoveland and Cal Zahn gave their hometown fans plenty to cheer about at the Lynx Invitational, as they spearheaded a strong meet by Webster City’s seniors on a night in which they were honored.

Zahn was a perfect 3-for-3 in his pursuit of all things gold. Hoveland was a two-time winner and also twice a runner-up, once right behind Zahn. They combined to score a hefty chunk of the Lynx 86 team points, which was good enough for fourth place in the field of eight teams.

“Those are our two veteran, high-performing seniors that we’ve come to count on and I thought it was cool that they both had a good night,” WCHS head coach Tony Bussan said. “But we’re more than that … I was real proud of all of our kids. We were in the hunt and we battled throughout the night.”

WCHS was at the top of the pecking order at the midpoint of the meet, but Humboldt (106), Clear Lake (93) and Pocahontas Area/Laurens-Marathon (89) surged ahead as the sun set and the wind finally calmed just a little.

Competing for the second straight night, Northeast Hamilton waded into difficult waters against much larger schools and slipped to the back of the field with 23 points.

Zahn warmed up for Thursday’s Drake Relays by executing flawlessly in the high jump. He came into the competition at 5 feet, 8 inches and was clean through his winning height of 6-2. Now he’ll set his sights on competing against the best in the state at 3 p.m. today.

“I expect him to perform well. If we can get 6-6 and a new school record, that would be cool, but I think he can go higher than that,” Bussan said. “If he’s clean through 6-6, and I see that as a real possibility, I think that will have a great chance to place.”

Zahn nipped Hoveland by a tenth of a second in the 100-meter dash. Running out of Lane 2, Zahn leaned across in 11.51 seconds to Hoveland’s 11.61 in the middle of the track.

Nobody was catching Hoveland in his premier event – the 110 high hurdles. He roared out to a big lead by the fifth hurdle and never looked back en route to a winning time of 15.67 seconds.

Hoveland led off and Zahn anchored the winning 4×100 relay (45.26). Gavin Dinsdale and Payton Kannuan handled the middle two legs.

The Lynx junior varsity 4×100 – Jordan Tanner, Zane Carter, Cory Keenan and Noah Perfect – set a new JV meet record of 45.84 in its victory.

“Our sprint depth really showed,” Bussan said. “It was great to see those JV guys run like that.”

Also out at the start of the shuttle hurdle relay, Hoveland teamed up with Fernando Martinez, Ty Schnathorst and Cody Blair to snag the silver in 1:02.09.

The 4×400 – Keenan, Schnathorst, Blair and Kyle Anderson – was also second in 3:49.04. Kannuan added a bronze medal in the long jump (19-0).

WCHS accrued 16 top-six places that earned points and double placed four times.

Kyle Pruismann accounted for 16 of Northeast Hamilton’s points, courtesy of a pair of runner-up results in the long jump (19-5.5) and 400 low hurdles (59.46). Nick Jeffers snared six more points with a third-place result in the discus (132-11).

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