Since Van-Far became a Class 2 track and field school in 2019, it has been a struggle sending kids to state.

Van-Far at Sectionals Photo Gallery

The boys won back-to-back Class 1 state titles in 2017 and 2018 and then Verlyn Johnson was all-state with a second-place in the boys 400, but then it was four straight years of no state appearances. McKenna Engh-Hoffman and Gaven Gaston each ended that streak by qualifying in the girls javelin and boys 100, respectively, in Saturday’s Class 2 Sectional 2 meet at South Callaway in Mokane.

Head coach Kris Cross said the program is happy that it will be sending anybody to the Class 2 state meet this Friday at Adkins Stadium in Jefferson City. That is especially true considering how much progress each Van-Far sectional made in such little time, including Engh-Hoffman, who went from a first-time javelin thrower this year to a state qualifier.

“Javelin was completely new to her,” Cross said. “One day at practice, she wanted to try it. She had never had much interest in it, and it’s gone pretty well for her.”

Engh-Hoffman finished fourth with a throw of 32.16 meters, which Cross said was her second-best throw of the year. She said Engh-Hoffman has made a shorter approach on the runway work since building up a bigger running start hasn’t worked in practice.

“She’s always done it that way,” Cross said. “We’ve tried it, and it never seems to go over well. We stuck with what has worked for her.”

Gaston finished fourth in the boys 100 with a time of 11.7, edging out Harrisburg’s Carter Bremer and his time of 11.74. Like many Van-Far boys this season, including Garrett Hopke in Saturday’s boys 3200, Gaston plays baseball and competes in track and field. While this brings a bigger workload to the sophomore, Cross said he has the ability to do well in the 100.

At districts, Cross said that was actually when Gaston debuted in the 100. She said it was funny because Gaston and Malik Douglas each brought no times to that event and were slotted in the “slow” heat only for them to finish third and eighth, respectively, in the field to shock the crowd.

“He’d been running the 4x100, and he’d been running the 4x200,” Cross said. “The 4x200 is right after the 100 so we couldn’t do both. We threw him into the 100 with no time. The gamble worked out.”

Cross said track and field only has three or four meets before districts so making choices of what events to match with each kid becomes more difficult. Each event requires a certain amount or type of training.

The freshman baseball player Hopke qualified for state cross country last year so it made sense to Cross to put him in the 3200. Despite only running in the event three times this year, including Saturday, Hopke finished fifth to put him 0.33 hundredths out of a state spot. He and Westran freshman Reece Sickler kept passing each other during the race, and Hopke finished under 11 minutes for the first time at 10:53.42.

“The two-mile was our best gamble,” Cross said. “The longer he goes, the better Garrett goes, which makes him such a good 5K runner in the fall for cross country. I was worried that he went out too slow today, but he picked it up and moved up where he needed to be. His last lap, I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”

Evan Utterback gave Van-Far another javelin thrower and personal record as well with a seventh-place throw of 42.02 meters in the Class 2 boys competition. For the second straight weekend, the first-time javelin thrower Utterback set the school record.

“He consistently, in every meet, gets a little bit further,” Cross said. “He started out at 28 meters his first meet, and he got up to 42. We told him just to try it since he is one of our throwers in the shotput.”

Gaston and Engh-Hoffman both compete on state's first day with the boys 100 starting at noon and the Class 2 girls javelin starting at 1 p.m.