Floyd Central lands another sectional title

Alan Stewart, Sports Editor

Despite having a relay team disqualified and the loss of points that came with the decision, Floyd Central waylaid the field at Thursday night’s Corydon Central boys track sectional.
The Highlanders advanced at least one runner in every event, except for the 400m relay squad, which was DQ’ed after anchor runner Zack Koetter threw his baton soon after crossing the line in third place.
New Albany was a distant second in the team chase, 169-112, followed by North Harrison (91), Corydon (79), Borden (61), Crawford County (36), Eastern (27), South Central (19), Lanesville (13), Salem (12), West Washington (2) and Christian Academy of Indiana (1).
The top four finishers in each event advance to Thursday’s Bloomington North Regional. Several qualifiers were from Harrison County.
Leading the charge was North Harrison’s Ryan Byrne, who was a three-event champion.
He won the mile in 4:25.09, the two-mile in 10:10.35 and was part of the 3200 relay team that set a school-record time of 8:12.58
Byrne didn’t have it easy in either of the individual events, however. In the 1600 he was pushed to the brink by Borden’s Ricky Book and in the 3200 it was teammate Scott Robertson providing the heat. Robertson led for a bit, but Byrne came back to win, with Robertson a close second.
‘I knew (Book) was coming strong at the 200 and I knew he’s got a pretty good kick on him,’ Byrne said. ‘I felt him behind me the whole race, but that last 50 I could see him in my peripheral vision. He got ahead of me a little bit and I just gave it all I got and hoped for the best.’
Corydon’s Billy Saulman and Brandon Wood had excellent nights as well.
Saulman was second in the 100 (11.3) with Wood fourth, Saulman was third in the 200 (23.21) with Wood fourth (23.35).
Wood was fourth in the long jump (20-3), which just beat out Ian Oehmann of North Harrison (20-2).
North Harrison’s Jordan Waiz was third in the 400 in 52.15, with Lanesville’s Nathan Dougherty fourth in 52.22
‘That was four years of hard work right there,’ Eagles coach Bob Winstead said. ‘He really deserved it. He’s worked at it for four years and had just steadily improved.’
Corydon’s Phillip Barth was second in the 800 in 2:03.45.
North’s Marty Hill got up for fourth in the 110m hurdles (16.83) while South Central’s Brian Hornickel turned in a time of 43.43 in the 300 hurdles to advance to Bloomington.
Corydon Central’s 400 relay team beat out New Albany for the win in 44.40, with North Harrison third in 46.94. The Panthers’ mile relay quartet was runner up in 2:35.06.
In the high jump, North Harrison had a second and a third with Jason Harrell (6-2) and Ben Robertson (5-10), respectively.
Casey Tuchscherer had a toss of 146-8 in the discus to move on in the tournament for the Panthers.
The Bloomington Regional begins at 5:30 p.m.