This Thursday Olympia’s Boys Track team will attend IHSA 2A Sectionals at Dunlap High School to race for a chance to go to state; a few events to watch for include the 3200 meter relay, 400 meter dash, and 110 meter hurdles.

The boys running in the 4x800 meter relay include Senior Blake Stine, Freshmen Grant Kessinger and Logan Wheeler, Junior Jake Spaid, and Sophomore Parker Kissner. The relay took 1st place at the conference meet and 4th at the Rochester Invite, a highly competitive meet with 15 teams.

Grant Kessinger will also be running the 400 meter dash at sectionals. He took 1st place at the Monticello Invite and 2nd place at Illini Prairie Conference meet. He is only 0.6 seconds from state qualifying time. As a freshman this time is very impressive.  

“This year I think I’ve done pretty well. I mean you can always improve times and get better but for my first high school year it’s been good,” said OHS Freshman Grant Kessinger.

Senior Dalton Spencer will be running the 110 meter hurdles and the 300 meter hurdles. He won the event at the Rochester Invite, he got 2nd at the Roger Washburn Invitational, 2nd at the El Paso-Gridley Co-Ed meet, and he’s placed at several other meets.

“I’m hoping to win the 110 hurdles because I’m ranked first and also the 300 but I would have to get a PR and lose a second off my time,” said Dalton Spencer.

Blake Stine and the other boys agreed this sectional seems to be one of the hardest ones in the state, with lots of competition. “We have such a competitive sectional because there’s so many good, larger schools like Metamora, Dunlap, U-High, and Eureka,” said Stine.

Good Luck at sectionals boys! Go Spartans!