Wright City Head Coach Sue Wright called it the “sprints district.”

But the lack of distance competition Saturday at Lutheran North didn’t slow down a pair of Wright City distance relay teams.

The 3,200-meter team of Jake Mueller, Stephon Norwood, George Pezold and Gavin Waters broke the school record and finished in 8 minutes, 27.58 seconds, good enough for third overall.

“I don’t look at records. I just tell them to go out there and beat their times,” Wright said. “But it was nice to see them break the record.”

Mueller and Norwood joined Will Janowski and Sean McDonald in the 1,600-meter relay, finishing fourth in 3:34.73.

The time was nearly two seconds faster than the previous school record that the group broke earlier this season.

The team’s best time of the year came at the Eastern Missouri Conference meet earlier this month, when it finished in 3:34.09. 

“We’ll have to beat that time on Saturday,” Wright said.

The team is ranked fifth in the sectional. 

“We’ll have to beat some people, but they’re capable of that,” Wright added.

Mueller failed to qualify in the 800, finishing fifth in 2:07.75.

“It was tough for me, but I don’t know if it was tough for him because now he can focus on two relays,” Wright said. “I would have been really disappointed if Jake didn’t get out in anything, but now he has to be that team leader and get everyone up to go further. I think Jake has a tough time by himself; he just had a bad day. But now you can’t have a bad day. You’ve got to make sure that whatever you do is the best you’ve ever done, with no excuses.”

McDonald qualified for the sectional in the 110- and 300-meter hurdles.

His 17.01 finish in the 110 hurdles was a personal best.

“The 100s are not his thing, but he got it done,” Wright said. “The 300s is where he is strong, but he is fifth right now. He’s going to have to get into that 41-second range, which would break the school record.”

Trevon Holmes fell short of his personal-best mark of 6 feet in the high jump, but he qualified for the sectional with a final jump of 5 feet, 10 inches.

“He’s got to go six, and that’s another field event where you just never know how it will play out,” Wright said. “He really only focuses on the high jump in practice, and I think he can move on. He has the ability to do it.”

The Wright City boys team will be represented in five events Saturday at Montgomery County, and the top four finishers in each event will qualify for the state meet in Jefferson City the following weekend.

“I always tell these kids that they have a lot more in them, and that’s what I’ll tell them this week at practice,” Wright said. “You just have to worry about placing and not times.”