BLOOMFIELD – The Centerville Big Red and Redette track-and-field teams competed at the South Central Conference meet in Bloomfield on Monday night.

The Big Reds failed to defend their 2007 conference championship, finishing third behind Eddyville-Blakesburg and Albia. In the past six years, E-B has won three conference titles while Centerville has also earned three SCC team titles.

Eddyville-Blakesburg and Albia also finished first and second in the girls team standings while Centerville took sixth. E-B’s SCC title marked the Lady Rockets’ seventh championship in the past eight years.

Katie Dekker led the Redettes, finishing first in the 400 low hurdles, third in the high jump and fourth in the long jump.

In the girls throwing events, Kaylee Mehrhoff placed second in the shot put while Danyielle Barger was fourth in the discus for the Redettes.

Morgan Danko placed in two events for Centerville, taking fifth in the 100 low hurdles and sixth in the 100 meter dash.

“I thought we had some good performances out there – everyone competed well,” commented Redette head coach Rich Gander. “I thought we did what we came here to do - we’re happy.”

Centerville’s Wallace Carter dominated in the boys throwing events, taking first place in the discus and shot put. Brett Kanselaar joined Carter on the shot put leaderboard, earning a fifth-place finish.

Big Red Logan Danko placed in three events with a second-place finish in the high jump and two fourth-place finishes in the 100 meter and 200 meter dashes.

Levi Long of Centerville had one of the most impressive performances in conference history, just missing a new 800 meter SCC record. Long clocked a season best time of 1:59.782, just missing the record of 1:59.75, set by Peter Hollatz of Centerville in 1997.

“He just missed the conference record. That was his third race. He ran in the 4x800 and 4x200 meter relays,” said Centerville head coach Jim McCord.

Brent Ewing recorded a sub five-minute mile, taking second place in the 1,600 meter run while Jason Conrad placed in the top four of the 400 low hurdles for the Big Reds.

Despite a third-place finish, McCord was happy with the way the Big Reds performed.

“I’m not disappointed in our performance at all. We knew we were going to be short handed. We approached the meet a little differently than we did last year. We took some events and specialized in those,” commented McCord. “I think it was a foregone conclusion – Eddyville-Blakesburg has a tremendous team. We have Friday (districts) in mind too. We ran our kids hard - we didn’t slack off.”

The Big Reds and Redettes will both be in action at the district meet in Mount Pleasant on Friday. Teams in attendance besides Centerville include Davis County, Fairfield, Fort Madison, Keokuk, Mount Pleasant, Pella and Washington.