ROMEOVILLE, Ill. - Missouri S&T senior John Karsten won a conference championship in the men's hammer throw and added two more top-four finishes, helping the Miners to a first-place finish in the Great Lakes Valley Conference track and field championships held Thursday through Saturday at Lewis University.
Karsten (Blair Oaks High School) won the hammer throw with a toss of 197 feet, 3 inches, on his third of six attempts. That distance is a season-best for Karsten, who won his first GLVC hammer throw title, and was 13 feet better than the second-place finisher.
In his other events, Karsten came in third place in the shot put with a throw of 52-5.5 and took fourth in the discus with a toss of 149-7 to contribute 21 points to the Miners' team score of 182.5 points.
Freshman Luke Allen also scored points for Missouri S&T in a pair of events.
Allen (Calvary Lutheran High School) finished fourth in the men's long jump with a leap of 22-7.75. He also ran on the Miners' 4x100-meter relay, which took sixth place with a time of 42.95 seconds, the fastest time they've run this season with Allen on the relay.
Truman State junior Hannah Oberdiek (South Callaway High School) posted a second-place finish for the Bulldogs in the women's long jump with a distance of 18-4.25.
Lewis senior Mervyn John scored points for the Flyers in three of his four events.
John (Jefferson City High School) narrowly qualified for the finals of the men's 400-meter hurdles after taking ninth place in the preliminaries. However, he improved his time by five seconds in the finals, taking third place in 55.38 seconds.
John added a sixth-place time of 15.55 seconds in the 110-meter hurdle finals and finished sixth in the triple jump with a distance of 45-0.25. He also came in 10th place in the long jump with a leap of 20-8.5.
Drury freshman Brendan Bena (Jefferson City High School) took 17th place in the men's 800-meter run preliminaries with a time of 1:58.56, missing the finals by less than three seconds. Bena also helped the Panthers to a ninth-place finish in the 4x400-meter relay, clocking a time of 3:30.78.
William Jewell sophomore Lexie Stull (Jefferson City High School) finished 11th in the women's triple jump with a distance of 34-8.25 and took 19th in the long jump with a leap of 14-4.5.