Kicking off the May portion of their season at the Cuba Middle School Invitational held on Cuba High School’s Wildcat Field of Pride, Bland Middle School (BMS) track and field athletes brought home two pieces of hardware from Crawford County.

Bland’s Bears topped the boys small school team standings with 129 points while their Lady Bear counterparts were second with 79 points behind Bourbon’s Lady Warhawks who finished with 79 points.

In the process of winning a team title, the Bears also set four new school records.

Michael Felton set a new BMS mark with a second-place time of 2:15.09 in the boys 800-meter run while fellow Bear distance runner Jackson Prater broke the school record for the third time this season with a first-place time of 4:52.18 in the boys 1600m run.

Teaming up to break a school record that was older than them, the Bland Bear 4x200m relay team of Alden Zabel, Weston Sadler, Dakota Stockton and Owen Dobson broke the 19-year old school record with a third-place time of 1:46.21.

Another school record broken for the third time this season was in the boys pole vault with Bland’s Liam Smith clearing 2.70m (eight feet, 10 inches) to place second in the event.

Bland’s Bears also won three more events in Cuba with Sadler winning the boys triple jump (10.29m), Stockton topping the field in the boys long jump (4.80m) and the boys 4x400m relay team of Liam Smith, Felton, Prater and Stockton posting a first-place time of 4:06.93.

Also sprinting to a second-place time of 52.11 in the boys 4x100m relay was the Bear quartet of Liam Smith, Sadler, Stockton and Zabel.

Scoring team points for the Bears in the boys 4x800m relay with a sixth-place time of 11:31.57 was the foursome of Ryker Huebner, Garit Trainer, Liam Bialczyk and Tharon Kent.

Spurling Hendrix (16th, 7.65m) and Hunter Boyer (7.48m) threw the shot put for Bland while Elliott Smith (9th, 24.74m) and Karsen Ridenhour (12th, 23.70m) also tossed the discus for the Bears.

Ciris Burrows sprinted to a 17th-place time of 15.39 in the boys 100m dash for the Bears while Ryder Huebner posted a 15th-place time of 29.88 in the boys 200m dash for Bland.

Jaseton Rodgers took a lap around the track for the Bears in the boys 400m dash posting an 18th-place time of 1:10.95.

Leading the Lady Bears in Cuba was Emilyn Lewis with a second-place throw of 20.67m in the girls discus. Harlie Gingerich also placed 12th for Bland in the girls discus with a throw of 14.08m.

Skylar Stevens posted the high individual finish for Lady Bears on the track with a fourth-place time of 6:33.64 while Gracie Jarvis also clocked in a ninth-place time of 7:48.85.

Sprinting to a sixth-place time of 59.26 in the girls 4x100m relay for Bland was the team of Kali Mayfield, Makenna Norris, Faith Gromowski and Shae Buechter.

Also scoring team points with a fifth-place time of 2:02.57 in the girls 4x200m relay for Bland was the quartet of Sedora Carroll, Mayfield, Buechter and Gromowski.

Picking up four more team points was the Lady Bear 4x800m relay team of Cora Langston, Marianne Francis, Stevens and Jarvis with a fifth-place time of 13:02.20.

Mayfield (9th, 8.01m) and Lucie Scott (7.15m) competed for the Lady Bears in the girls shot put.

Stevens (6th, 2:59.17) and Francis (10th, 3:14.89) also finished in the top 10 of the girls 800m run for the Lady Bears.

Bland ended their season on the track last Thursday at Union and a complete recap of that meet will be in next week’s Advocate.