West Platte seniors Charlie Kinslow and Tristan Newkirk hold the Class 2 State Third-Place Plaque after the Blue Jays earned their first all-state honors since 2014 at Jefferson City High School on May 20.
Nearly a decade has passed since the last time the West Platte boys’ track and field team brought home a state plaque, but the Blue Jays stepped up, outperformed expectations and tied for third place at the Class 2 State Meet.
West Platte took fourth place in 2014 and it has been trying to reach that all-state feat again, with it finally happening at Jefferson City High School on May 20. The Blue Jays ended the opening day tied in third place with 14 points – all of which were from senior Charlie Kinslow – and they took some time that night to reevaluate their chances of finishing top-4 overall.
“We knew we had a good weekend and when we started to crunch the numbers, we saw it might be close,” West Platte boys’ track and field coach Jim Newsted said. “Last night we sat down to look at the numbers again; the team talked, we set some goals and we said, if we can make these goals in these four races today – including the 4x100 and 4x200 – I think we have a chance. We exceeded our goals; everyone went at least one place higher than they were expected.”
The West Platte boys’ 4x800-meter relay team of Alex Kinslow, Jonah McGivern, Tristan Newkirk and Charlie Kinslow celebrate after seeing their 8:23.44 time, giving them fourth place as three of the four ran PR’s in the race at the Class 2 State Meet.
With preliminary races taking a large chunk of day one, the 800 and 1,600-meter runs were the only non-field events that any boys’ team could earn points in. Kinslow started the weekend off by breaking the program record in the 1,600 to take second place in 4:22.23 and went on to earn third place in the 800 in 1:58.74.
“It was definitely tough mentally and it was a grind of a race for all three of us at the top,” Kinslow said. “It was the same guys in the mile and the 800 so it was interesting and fun to see how that race went; it was just a grind out.”
West Platte started the second day off strong, taking fourth place overall in the 4x800-meter relay with a time of 8:23.44. Jonah McGivern started the relay off before Tristan Newkirk, Alex Kinslow and Charlie Kinslow all ran career best splits of 2:07.8, 2:12.57 and 1:58, respectively.
“The first lap felt really fast, but it really wasn’t too bad and then the second lap, I kind of took off a little bit,” Jonah McGivern said. “Our freshman did amazing, Alex (Kinslow) was awesome; we weren’t expecting Tristan (Newkirk) to come up with 2:07, we expected like a 2:10; then Chuck (Charlie Kinslow) did what he had to do, so that was great.”
West Platte’s Dominic Williams hands the baton to Will Shafer in the 4x100-meter relay at Jefferson City High School.
August Hill was the first and only individual to have a race on the day after he qualified in the 100-meter dash with a seventh-place finish in 11.46 seconds on opening day. Hill rose to the occasion in the finals and earned a bronze medal, improving his time to 11.21 seconds, which was 0.01 seconds faster than the fourth-place runner.
“I was ranked fourth but came out of the prelims at seven, so I was a little nervous, but I came out okay in third place,” August Hill said. “It feels good, I was coming off an ACL injury and still getting back into it.”
Next up for West Platte was the 4x200-meter relay with McGivern, Will Shafer, Hill and Dominic Williams breaking the program record. The four Blue Jays crossed the finish line in 1:31.72, good for fourth place and five more team points.
“Our goal was to break the record. Our intention was to get eighth place, which was still giving us a plaque, but we came out with fourth place. I think and the record was just a pat on the back,” Hill said.
Colton Depetre joined Williams, Hill and Shafer in the 4x100-meter relay, and they sped to a second-place finish in 44.36 seconds. After that, the Blue Jays had 38 points and were sitting in first place in all of Class 2 but didn’t have anymore events as they had to sit and watch the rest of the events to see what schools passed them in the standings.
Augie Hill medaled in the 200-meter dash, along with two relays, on May 20.
“I got a clipboard of papers and was writing numbers down and it came down to the last event, the 4x400. We saw that there was a possibility to tie for third if Christian went sixth, seventh or eighth and Christian went sixth. It was an exciting day; we had a lot of fun doing this and I like to crunch the numbers, that’s kind of my thing,” Newsted said.
The way the dominoes fell, there wasn’t a second or fourth place team in Class 2, but a tie for first and third. Summit Christian and Charleston tied with 47 points, while West Platte and Christian were both nine points behind.
“We’re excited about that in the future but can’t say enough about my boys, they excelled today. I’ve won some second and third place plaques before, but this is probably the most fun because they set goals, went for it and we overachieved and surprised some people,” Newsted said.
West Platte only had one state qualifying event that didn’t earn a point when McGivern almost made it to the finals in the 400-meter dash, crossing the finish line in 52.16 seconds and ending in ninth place. The top-8 runners in preliminaries make it out and the eighth-place runner ended in 52 seconds flat.
“Taking ninth by 0.16 seconds was kind of tough and it kind of ate me up a little bit which was a little bit of a motivation to succeed more in the other races. I was more fresh from not having run the 400,” McGivern said.