The Warrenton boys track team delivered another commanding performance in Thursday’s Wildcat Invitational, winning its second straight meet and finishing with 109 points.

O’Fallon Christian (72 points) and Orchard Farm (70) rounded out the top three.

Similar to its win the previous week at St. Dominic, Warrenton overpowered the field with balance.

The Warriors posted top-five finishes in 12 of the 18 events at Wright City.

“I knew coming into the season that we were going to be well-balanced, and I couldn’t be more proud of them,” Warrenton Head Coach Steve McDowell said. “We rallied up points from a lot of different folks.”

Senior Jacob Crump swept the 200-meter and 300 hurdles in 22.80 seconds and 40.58 seconds, respectively, and helped lead the Warriors to a first-place finish in the 800 relay.

Crump, along with sophomore Dylan Chandler, senior Braydan Chmiel and junior Keagan Michelson, posted a time of 1 minute, 34.18 seconds.

Crump helped carry the 1,600 relay, as well, joining Chandler, Andrew Hodgson and Brandon Molinari to finish second in 3:40.98.

“He’s really excelled for us this season,” McDowell said of Crump. “He’s just a very good track athlete, there’s no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

Freshman Nathan Nordwald finished second in the 3,200 (10:38.96), third in the 1,600 (4:55.30) and ran the first leg for the 3,200 relay team that finished second in 8:47.20.

The group shaved nearly seven seconds off its race at St. Dominic the week prior.

“You’d be crazy if you didn’t like the first-place finishes, but improving on your times is really what you’re looking at, especially at this point in the season,” McDowell said. “We’ve got two freshmen (Nordwald and Isaac Frederick) and two sophomores (Chandler and Matthew Hackmann) on that 4X800 team, and they just keep getting better each time out on the track. That’s what I’m most pleased about.”

In the field events, junior Ruben Varnado set a personal-best mark in the shot put with his final toss of 44 feet, 4 inches, good enough for a second-place finish.

“He was throwing in the low 40s, now he’s in the mid-40s, and all of a sudden he’ll be shooting in the upper-40s soon,” McDowell said. “He’s working hard at it and it’s paying off.”

Varnado followed that up with a fourth-place finish in the discus with a distance of 121-4.

The Warriors will look for their third straight win Friday afternoon in the Fort Zumwalt Invitational.

As the second half of the season gets underway, McDowell said his biggest priority will be keeping his athletes fresh as they begin to prepare for the postseason.

He plans on shuffling athletes into different events periodically to keep them fresh for their main events.

“I love winning, but you’ve got to watch out if they’re getting tired,” he said. “We’ve got great communication, so when they get tired we’ll back them off a little bit and pick it back up toward the end of the season to keep them fresh.”