Five Big Lake track and field athletes took part in the Class AA State Championships last week.

They came home with four gold medals.

Jack Leuer lowered his own school record and won the 800 meters in a time of 1:54.36. He also had the fastest time in the preliminaries at 1:57.13.

Leuer started the season second all-time in the 800 for Big Lake behind Greg Smock’s 1:56.14 set in 1997. Leuer broke that recored earlier this season, running 1:55.26 at the Hamline Elite Meet.

Owen Layton broke his own school record and won the 1600 meters in 4:13.54, edging Bjorn Anderson of Perham by less than a second. He started the season second behind Leuer in the 1600 with a time of 4:20.08 before lowering that to 4:16.95 at the True Team Meet and again to 4:15.44 at the Section 5AA meet.

Layton also broke his own school record and placed fourth in the 3200 meters in 9:14.13. Sal Wirth from Annandale won the event in 9:06.54.

Layton finishes his high school running career with school records in the 1600, 3200 and as part of the 4x400 and 4x800 relay teams. He also finished seventh in the State cross-country meet last October.

Tayla Glassman is the state champ in two wheelchair  events. The sophomore won the discus with a throw of 40’4” and the shot put at 20’0.75.” It was the second straight year she won gold at state in those two events.

The 4x400 relay team of Caleb Kennedy, Owen Layton, Josh Kennedy and Jack Leuer ran 3:29.78 but did not qualify for the finals. Mankato West won the event in 3:23.82.

Both Kennedys finished their high school running careers as two of the top 400-meter runners for Big Lake. Caleb ran a 52.507 and Josh ran 52.684 as part of the team’s record-breaking time of 3:27.94 set at the Section 5AA meet this season.