[weaver_youtube kncQF6gfzuk rel=0]

SYRACUSE – It’s almost as if Mother Nature is showing her hand in not liking track. Whether it’s girls duals on Tuesdays or boys meets on Thursdays, the weather this spring has just been rotten, notably in Northern Lakes Conference competition in April. May began with the same issues, with biting wind and pelting rain spitting all over Warriors Field as Warsaw fought through the conditions to earn a 109.5-22.5 boys track win over Concord and 85-47 result against Wawasee while the Warriors tamed Concord 84-48.

It was just ugly outside, but that didn’t mean there weren’t special things happening in the meet. Above all were the performances from Wawasee’s Clayton Cook, who was responsible for lowering two of his school records and running a blistering anchor of another record in the 4×100 relay.

Cook looked unstoppable in the 100, running an 11.07, lowering his record of 11.12 set earlier this season. His 200 was equally impressive, timing at 21.76 and a full second faster than Tristan McClone of Warsaw. Cook’s 200 school mark had been 22.30, which he set in April.

The Wawasee 4×100 relay team of Tyler Courter, Michael Pena, JJ Gilmer and Cook broke a 2004 record of 43.86 with its 43.81, again with Cook zipping down the final stretch well ahead of both Warsaw’s and Concord’s anchors.

While not setting a record of any kind, Cook also won the 110 hurdles with a time of 15.18, a second-and-a-half better than Warsaw’s Caleb Klusman at 16.68.

“He is just hungry,” Wawasee head coach Scott Lancaster said of Cook. “He is just hungry for those types of races, and I just keep feeding him. This was a nice night for him to take a shot at the times. I took him out of the 300 hurdles and put him in the 200 because, honestly, on paper we needed to beat Concord.”

Wawasee and Warsaw both won seven events, but Warsaw’s ability to gain second and third place points, even in its wins, made all the difference.

[weaver_youtube p14ZoQOje_s rel=0]

Warsaw made up ground in the field events, riding the arm of Seth Fouts to two wins in shot put and discus. Fouts went 142-06 in the discus to beat Wawasee’s Ethan Brown by two feet then blew everyone out in the shot put with a throw of 57-05. Alex Wilkie added a narrow win in the long jump at 19-7 1/2, besting Concord’s Ramon Johnson by a quarter-inch.

The Tigers’ 4×400 relay was hand’s down the best of the night at 3:36.14 while the 4×800 was just as dominant at 8:55.62 as the rain really began to fall as the meet opened.

Ross Armey won the 300 hurdles at 41.13 for the Tigers and Ellis Coon won one of the more admirable races of the night, the two-mile, that featured a nice show of sportsmanship. Coon, still dealing with an injured foot, along with an ailing Adam Doll of Wawasee, could have put on quite a two-man race if 100 percent. But the two backed off for the first mile as Wawasee’s Troy Carolus lead the pack for four of the eight laps all by his lonesome.

After the mile mark, Coon and Doll took off and raced for the win and it was Coon who fought through the grit just a little harder with a 10:34.99 win, about 20 meters better than Doll Thursday night. Carolus placed fifth.

“I think a night like tonight helps us in a lot of ways,” said Warsaw head coach Matt Thacker. “It forced us to have to run harder against a quality opponent like Wawasee. We also had to fight through the weather. But we needed to see what we have with the conference meet coming up in about a week. I liked what I saw out of a lot of our guys tonight.”

Doll would win the one-mile at 4:33.34, Zach Cockrill the 800 at 2:01.80 and Gilmer bested Warsaw’s Stephen Kolbe on jumps at 6-2 for the high jump win.

Concord’s Darnell Bean took the 400 at 52.14 and Gavin Longbrake went 10-6 in the pole vault for honors.

For Warsaw, which moves to 6-0 in the NLC and at least a share of the regular season title, it’s onto the Max Truex and a rematch with Penn Friday night at Warsaw. Wawasee, which settles at 4-1 in the NLC, will take on Memorial and NorthWood next Wednesday to close out the conference slate.