Jamestown's Hargis second in Class 1 long jump

Jamestown's Zach Hargis lands in the sand to record a mark in the long jump Saturday in the Class 1 state track and field championships at Adkins Stadium.
Jamestown's Zach Hargis lands in the sand to record a mark in the long jump Saturday in the Class 1 state track and field championships at Adkins Stadium.

For about five minutes, Jamestown's Zach Hargis was holding down first place in the boys long jump.

His first jump went for 20 feet, 8.5 inches, putting Hargis in the lead by nearly five inches. But Green City's Asher Buggs-Tipton came along and had quite the state debut, jumping 21-4 on his second attempt and posting a top jump of 22-0.75 on his third attempt to win the long jump.

"I felt pretty good, but I knew I had competition in Asher because I've seen him jump," Hargis said.

Still, Hargis' first jump was good enough to keep him in second place until the end of the event, the Eagles' top finish Saturday at state.

"It definitely made me feel confident coming out," Hargis said of his first jump. "It took the pressure off a little bit."

Hargis was trying to become the first Jamestown athlete to win a state title at the track and field championships at Adkins Stadium. He jumped 19-4.25 in his second attempt, 19-9.75 in his third and 19-4.25 in his fourth.

Hargis came up just shy of his personal best of 20-10, which he achieved two weeks earlier at districts.

"The goal was to get on the podium, for sure," Hargis said after he earned his first state medal.

The long jump was just one of four state titles Buggs-Tipton won Saturday. After the long jump, he won the 110-meter hurdles in 14.78 seconds, the triple jump with a distance of 45-0.25 and the 300-meter hurdles in 39.11 seconds.

Hargis helped Jamestown to an all-state performance later in the 4x200-meter relay. The Eagles took eighth place with a time of 1:35.11, edging Vienna by 0.23 seconds for the final spot on the podium.

"I was happy with it," Hargis said of the relay. "We broke our (personal record), so there's that. It was a pretty clean race, I feel like we did excellent today."

Cole Higgins ran the first leg of the relay for the Eagles, followed by Shayne Harlan and then Tristan Jones before finishing with Hargis on the anchor.

Higgins had his left hand in a blue cast after breaking his hand playing basketball earlier this spring, so when he began the relay out of the starting blocks, he had to do so in a three-point stance.

"He's been doing that for the past three meets," Hargis said of Higgins, who was running in his final high school race. "It's worked out pretty well, we've been practicing that a lot."

Jamestown has qualified in the boys 4x200 in the past three state championships, finishing 13th in 2019 and fourth in 2018. Higgins ran on all three relays.

Hargis also qualified for state in the 200-meter dash, where he finished 12th with a time of 23.63.

"There was some tough competition, but I thought I did pretty good," said Hargis, who was the CCAA champion in the 100, 200 and long jump this season.

Annabelle Sumner, who also a three-time CCAA champion this season, qualified for state in three events for the Lady Eagles.

Sumner's best finish came in the girls 4x200, as she was joined by Jolene Sorrells, Emma Baepler and Ginna Meisenheimer for an eighth-place time of 1:53.75.

Sumner finished 13th in both the 100 (13.53 seconds) and the 400-meter dash (1:04.06). Baepler added a 14th-place finish in the long jump with a leap of 14-0.25.

Other state qualifiers for Jamestown were Jones, who finished 12th in the boys triple jump with a distance of 39-0.5, and Travis Barbour, who came in 10th place in the boys discus with a throw of 116-8.

"I feel like we did amazing at state," Hargis said. "We're a small school, we don't really go to big meets like this very much. I'm pretty pleased."

The Jamestown boys finished alone in 27th place in the Class 1 team standings with nine points. Aided by 40 points from Buggs-Tipton, Green City won the boys state title with 87 points. Mound City was second with 48 points, followed by Valle Catholic in third with 41 points and Calvary Lutheran in fourth with 37.

The Jamestown girls were one of 57 teams to record a point at the state meet. College Heights Christian won the Class 1 girls state title with 62 points, followed by Princeton (43), Tarkio (33) and Rock Port (32) to round out the top four.