Altamont’s Wendling and Vandalia’s Depew and Jackson Advance to IHSA Boys Track State Finals

Three I70Sports area athletes are into the Finals of the IHSA 1A Boys State Track Meet following preliminary round action on Thursday at Eastern Illinois University. Altamont’s Brock Wendling tossed a personal best of 52’ 4.75” in the Shot Put to qualify for Finals as he currently sits in 7^th place among the 12 athletes that advance to Finals. The Prelim throws do carry over to Finals and Wendling will get three more throws on Saturday in the Finals at 10:00am with the top 9 finishers reaching the podium. Vandalia’s Jackson had a strong showing in his first trip to State as he ran a personal best of 1:59.05 in the 800m Run, breaking his school record set at Sectionals as he earned one of 12 advancing spots. Jackson currently sits with the 8^th fastest time of the 12 advancers and on Saturday the top 9 finishers will make the podium after the Finals race is ran at 1:55pm. Vandalia’s Depew will look to return to the podium in the 200m Dash for the second year in a row after he ran a personal best time of 21.88 seconds to again beat his own school record in the event, finishing first in his heat to advance to Saturday’s Finals. As only nine move on to Saturday’s Finals, Depew is guaranteed a spot on the podium but will look to improve on his 6^th place finish from last year as he sits with the sixth fastest time heading into the Finals race at 4:05pm Saturday afternoon.

In other action during Thursday’s Prelims, Depew finished 12^th in the 100m Dash with a time of 10.92 seconds, Vandalia junior Sam Bowers finished 19^th in the 110m Hurdles with a time of 15.66 seconds and the Vandalia 4×200 relay team of Bowers, Depew, Paddy McDowell and Jayden Hubler-Rench finished 24^th with a time 1:33.16.