Centralia and Paris' Landen Chapman had a great start to state track on Friday.
On the first day of the Class 1, 2 and 3 state championships at Adkins Stadium at Jefferson City High School, Centralia won five medals and the Lady Panthers finished Day 1 on top of the Class 3 team standings with 20 points (compared to second-place Lawson's and St. Charles West's 16 points). Landen Chapman was a dual state champion (his first state titles in high school) for Paris in the Class 2 meet as he won the boys 1600 with a personal-best time of 4:20.07 and the was on top of the 800 with a personal-best 1:56.58.
North Callaway's Jocelyn Siegel qualified for the finals in the Class 3 girls triple jump but just missed the top eight to medal with a ninth-place jump of 10.44 meters. Community R-6's Drake Welch finished 12th in the Class 1 boys javelin with a throw of 42.51 meters. Van-Far's Evan Utterback was 15th in the Class 2 boys javelin with a throw of 43.12 meters.
For the Centralia girls, the Class 3 girls 4x800 relay team of Katie Asbury, Elizabeth Romine, Becca Erisman and Kenedee Moss made it to the podium first by finishing fifth with a time of 10:03.90. Kassena Ridgel and Cora King earned third and fourth place, respectively, in the girls discus with personal-best throws of 38.68 meters and 38.45 meters. Claire Page finished fourth in the girls pole vault with a height of 3.25 meters.
Nolan Spickert finished fourth in the boys 1600 for the Centralia boys but also broke a longtime school record. Spickert ran for a time of 4:16.86 to be better than the 4:20.38 set in 1982 by Dan Wieschhaus. Ethan Ross qualified for the boys 100 and 400 finals tomorrow with respective preliminary finishes of a seventh-place 10.95 and a fifth-place 50.03.
Paris' Mia Kendrick qualified for the Class 1 girls 200 tomorrow with a time of 26.04. She ran in the 4x200 relay with Gretchen and Sophia Crusha and Ava Crain and finished ninth with a school-record time of 1:48.22 -- 0.21 seconds of the last qualifying spot.
Look for more state track coverage on the Mexico Ledger website tomorrow and in the Wednesday, May 28, 2025, edition of the Mexico Ledger.
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