CONWAY — Chris Barrientos won the 1600-meter run and Kaine Villareal-Hurst finished runner-up in the pole vault with a personal record to provide two of the major highlights for the Bryant Hornets track team at the Wampus Cat Invitational meet at Conway on Tuesday.
The Hornets finished sixth in the team standings with 54 points. Conway won the meet with 128 points. Pine Bluff was a distant second with 88 in the 14-team field.
The meet marked the end of the regular-season schedule for the Hornets, who will host the Class 7A State meet on May 3. Up next, they’ll compete in the 7A-Central Conference meet at Cabot on Thursday, April 26.
Barrientos won the 1600 in a time of 4:33.90.
“Chris did a great job of sticking to the game plan,” said Hornets head coach Steve Oury. “We wanted him to take it easy for the first two laps and then accelerate, and he looked strong.”
Villareal-Hurst cleared 13’4”, matching the winning height achieved by Vilonia’s Carson Lenser, who earned first by reaching the height on fewer tries.
“Kaine did a great job getting a personal record in the pole vault and then coming back to run a strong leg on the 4×400 relay,” noted Oury.
In that relay, Villareal-Hurst joined J’lun Herron, Logan Kretsch and Randy Thomas on a 3:34.28 to place third.
The Hornets’ 4×800 relay team finished second to Conway by 32-hundredths of a second with Barrientos, Jake Dreher, Hunter Ulmer and Josh Nelson turning in an 8:34.46 clocking.
Bryant’s 4×100 relay team ran a State-qualifying time of 43.31, placing fourth, with Dionte Collier, Braden Williams, Diante Woodson and Thomas combining.
“It was nice to see the 4×100 relay team pick up a State-qualifying time against some strong competition,” Oury commented.
Thomas added points in the 100 and 200. He was third in the 100 in a time of 11.54 and sixth in the 200 at 23.54. Kretsch was sixth in the 400 with a time of 53.23 and Williams was seventh in the 200 in 23.65.
Chris Morgan turned in an 11:07.43 to take seventh in the 3200 while Sam Perryman ran a 43.93 to finish eighth in the 300-meter hurdles.
“We are struggling a little bit in the field events,” Oury noted. “We have some athletes who are capable of scoring, so we need to put in some work between now and the conference meet to make sure we are ready physically and mentally.”
