Jesup’s Jack Miller continues busy spring with long jump title at state track and field meet

DES MOINES — Jesup’s Jack Miller caused a slight delay during the medal presentations at Thursday’s Class 2A state track and field meet at Drake Stadium.

That’s because the multi-sport star needed to swiftly swap out his long jump shoes for his neon yellow running spikes.

Miller — who will play basketball at Upper Iowa — soared to the long jump title with a top leap of 22 feet and 2.5 inches. Moments later, he jogged across the track to sprint in the 200.

“I knew I wanted to long jump,” said Miller, who qualified fourth for the 200 with a time of 22.39 seconds. “But this year I kind of took over the sprinting job a little bit and I’ve had fun with it.”

Miller is accustomed to taking on a versatile and heavy workload as an athlete. He split time between golf and track this spring and is also a standout pitcher for Jesup’s baseball team.

So suffice it to say Miller craves competition. That’s why he wasn’t necessarily thrilled with his best mark in the long jump on Thursday, but he clearly enjoyed the flag-waving result.

“I won state, so, yeah, I’m pretty pleased,” said Miller, who also won the long jump at last month’s Drake Relays.

Connell Sauser of Oelwein was relatively pleased with a third-place finish in the 3,200 meters.

“The strategy was to go out and get top three,” Sauser said. “I probably should have pushed a little harder for that first or second. The first and second — they took off. I (couldn’t) stay with that. They took off fast.

“There was no strategy, just go out and run.”

Other Gazette area boys’ athletes who placed in the top five in Thursday’s events:

* Landon Sullivan of Mid-Prairie took fourth in the long jump with a best effort of 21-01.

* Preston Ries of Monticello earned a fourth-place finish in the shot put, unleashing a top throw of 55 feet and 5 inches.

* Waukon’s 3,200-meter relay team of Skyler Dugan, Jack O’Neill, Brandon Leppert and Wyatt Gulla surged to a fourth-place finish in the race (8:02.14).

Thursday’s Class 2A boys’ state track and field results

At Des Moines (Drake Stadium)

Top 10 teams (through 5 events) — 1. Mediapolis, 18; 2. Underwood, 16; 3. South Hamilton, 14; 4. Des Moines Christian, 11; 5. tie, Jesup, Pella Christian, Okoboji, 10; 9. Shenandoah, 8; 10. Mid-Prairie, 7.

Long jump — 1. Jack Miller (Jesup), 22-02.5; 2. Mason Boothby (Underwood), 22-0.5; 3. Landon Osberg (West Central Valley), 21-0.875; 4. Landon Sullivan (Mid-Prairie), 21-01.

3,200 — 1.Solomon Zaugg (Mediapolis), 9:19.15; 2. Caleb Ten Pas (Des Moines Christian), 9:25.96; 3. Conall Sauser (Oelwein), 9:33.88.

3,200 relay — 1. Okoboji (Heimdal, Jostand, Sandven, Osler), 7:49.87: 2. Mediapolis, 7:51.00; 3. Unity Christian 8:01.82; 4. Waukon, 8:02.14.

Shot put — 1. Trevor Veenstra (Pella Christian), 58-10.75; 2. Maxwell Tiarks (Underwood), 57-11.5; 3. Grant Gray (Northeast), 55-10.5; 4. Preston Ries (Monticello), 55-05; 7. Burke Berry (Mid-Prairie), 51-11.5.

400 — 1. Ty Koehnk (South Hamilton), 48.39: 2. Alex Razee (Shenandoah), 49.35: 3. Chizkiyah Richmond (South Hardin), 49.51.