NorthWood’s Brad Demitruk clears the bar during his winning pole vault exhibition Thursday night. InkFreeNews photo by Mike Deak

By Adam Yoder
InkFreeNews

NAPPANEE – For the first time in nearly two years, the NorthWood Panthers were able to host a track and field meet Thursday night as head coach Boonie Boocher got to play host in a meet for the first time at NorthWood.

Boocher, who was the head boys track and field coach at Bellmont before his arrival at NorthWood several years ago, was hired before last season’s COVID canceled year to be the Panthers’ head man.

Unfortunately for the hosts, they couldn’t come out victorious versus either Northern Lakes Conference opponent, Concord (88-43) or Mishawaka (81-51). In the third NLC triangle of the night, the Cavemen bested the Minutemen 75-57.

The Panthers received strong performances in the field events early in the meet to keep in contact of the visitors.

Brad Demitruk garnered a first-place finish in the pole vault against both squads with a vault of 12 feet.

Brevin Miller also boosted the Panther field events with a winning throw of 47-1 in the shot put and a runner-up finish in the discus with a toss of 127-11.

On his vaulter and thrower, Boocher commented, “Both of them did a really good job, especially when you consider they didn’t really get to practice their event the last few days because of the weather.”

The opening race on the track also saw the Panthers notch a victory. The 3200-meter relay team of Grady Stevenson, Brady Hunsberger, Jordan Burden, and Titus Stutsman coasted to victories with a time 8:34.18.

Hunsberger would also win the 800 in 2:02.22 and finish second in the 1600 in 4:38.06.

“Our distance kids once again did a good job, especially Brady and that 4×8 group,” Boocher noted.

In the sprints, Mishawaka’s Davonn Parker and Concord’s Jaton Thomas finished first and second in both the 100 and 200-meter dashes. NorthWood was only able to garner third place versus each team in the 400-meter dash.

Those lost points proved key for the visitors to widen the margin over the host Panthers.

Boocher continued, “Those are two really good teams. We’ve go to keep working and keep getting better. We did some really good things, but we also have some things to improve on.”

Some of those other bright spots included Wes Yoder’s second place finish versus both teams in the 100-meter dash in a time of 12.00. Teammate Noah Blosser matched Yoder in the 300 intermediate hurdles by finishing in a time of 45.09.

The Panthers are back in action on Saturday at 9 a.m. at the 78th running of the Goshen Relays.