Tiger boys win district title

ANTHONY CRANE/THE FORUM
Worth County senior Lucas Frisch hurdles Saturday in Grant City.

GRANT CITY, Mo. – The Worth County track team entered the 2026 season with fewer athletes than they’re used to, but the talent was there and that showed Saturday at Worth County High School in the Class 1 District 8 Championships. The boys’ team won the district championship as a team, edging out second-place Mound City 108-99.

“Our goal was to be district champions coming into this meet,” Worth County coach Cree Beverlin said. “I think almost every event outside of two or three, we scored in or had multiple people score — so I think it was a very successful day,”

Senior Lucas Frisch has won almost every race he’s participated in and that continued on Saturday with wins in the 110-meter hurdles and the 4×100 relay. Frisch’s 15.71 time in the 110 was his best time since April 6 and his third best time of the season.

Frisch came up just short of a win in the 300-meter hurdles, finishing second with a time of 43.67. The senior joined Cole Ruby, Bo Collins and Andrew Griffin in the 4×100 which they won over Rock Port with a time of 45.12.

The relay success continued with 4×200 team, beating Stanberry. Brayden Combs, Wyatt Hill, Dylan Smith and Jordan Dannar finished with a time of 1:34.96.

“We kind of messed with our 4×2 an hour before the meet and just wanted to add some assurance that it would get out of districts and it ran a PR by four seconds,” Beverlin said.

Junior Bo Collins led the team in the field events, starting with a win in the discus with a throw of 43.27 meters. Albany’s Elliot Mercer finished second in the event with a throw of 40.96 meters. Collins couldn’t get by the Rock Port duo of Ryder Herron and Gabriel Gebhards in the shot put, finishing third with a throw of 13.37 meters.

Griffin will keep busy in next week’s Sectionals round adding the high jump to his list of events. The Worth County senior finished second with a jump of 1.80 meters.

The Tigers will send two pole vaulters to the next round with Hill and Combs finished second and third in the event. Hill and Combs each finished with a score of 3.35 meters, while Mound City’s Ernest Peters won the event with a score of 3.66 meters.

Jordan Dannar’s freshman season will carry into next week after finishing fourth in the long jump. Dannar was half an inch from third place with a jump of 5.84 meters.

“We’ve got senior that are out of school who come back every day for practice, but that’ll just be different not having been in school all day,” Beverlin said. “Then we’ve got a week so we had kids do more today than they had all year, but I had to remind them we have a week off between the next meet, so we’ll take some rest days, some stretch days, and some days where we have to hit it hard just to make sure we keep up with our conditioning.”

The girls will also see some of its athletes moving on after a good round of districts. Junior Keira Hardy earned a win in the 100-meter with a time of 13.33 seconds. Hardy was also a part of the 4×100 team that finished third alongside teammates Audrey Runde, Kristen Tracy, and Megan Tracy with a time of 52.58.

Runde also qualified in the discus, finishing third with a throw of 30.64 meters. The sophomore was close to adding another event next week but came up short in the javelin where she finished fifth.

“We had a lot of PRs and personal bests,” Tiger coach Janice Borey said. “Keira also ran a 27.92 in the 200 for fifth and she gave it everything she had. Audrey got fifth in the javelin, so she was right there. But they did great today and I was just really proud of them.”