A late season surge by the Sparta boys track and field continued Friday by winning the sectional title in coach Mark North’s last meet held at Buzz Bradley Track.
“It was an incredible feeling to win final meet on home track,” said North. “The team has really put it together the last two months of the season. We are happy we won the sectional but we want the kids to win some medals at state, that’s what it’s all about.”
Despite a disqualification by one of its distance relay teams, the Bulldogs edged out Nashville by  1.5 points.
Sparta finished with 97.5 points followed by Nashville (96), Murphysboro (93), Freeburg (81.5) and Columbia (53) to round out the top five.
“It was a close competition and we really didn’t expect to win,” said North. “But we had some great performances and we pulled it out in the end despite the disqualification.”
Sparta qualified four individuals to the state meet, London Oliver (second long jump), Wade Reeves (first 3200 meter run), Jon Hill (first 1600 meter run) and Wesley Bradshaw (second 1600 meter run).
Sparta also qualified for state in three relay events, the 3200 meter relay, the 400 meter relay and the 800 meter relay.
Some other top finishers for the Bulldogs included Klayton Coop (fourth pole vault, fourth 110 meter hurdles and sixth 300 meter hurdles), Kirk Henley (fourth in the shot put and sixth in the discus), Derrick Barnett (fifth 800 meter run), Josh Bockhorn (fifth 400 meter dash), Sharvell Austin (third 200 meter dash), Luke Henley (fifth shot put), Greg Scheibel (fifth triple jump) and Oliver (sixth triple jump).
Chester senior John Baughman and sophomore Kyle Landon also qualified for the state track meet
Baughman won the pole vault with a leap of 14' 6 which breaks the school record he set earlier this year by three inches.
Landon finished second in the high jump with a leap of 6' 1.
The state qualifiers will participate in preliminaries Thursday at Eastern Illinois University.