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Anyone paying close attention to Warsaw boys’ track and field will agree the field events - specifically the shot put and discus, pole vault, long jump, and the high jump – have made significant contributions to Warsaw’s conference and sectional championships.
The most recent sectional title for the Tigers finished with Warsaw taking the trophy home with 135 team points followed by Concord (108 points), and Elkhart (102 points).
Field event performances in the discus (a first through third place sweep, 24 points), shot put (first, second places – 18 points), high jump (first place – 10 points), pole vault (second, third places – 14 points), and the long jump (second place – 8 points) did some heavy lifting (jumping, throwing, and vaulting too) for the total team’s title-winning effort.
Add ‘em up, kids. It totals 74points among six dudes: seniors Kam Kauffman, James Leiter (36 combined points in two throwing events), sophomore Tucker Reed (16 points, pole vault and long jump), junior James Randall (10 points, high jump), senior Ben Booren (6 points, discus), and Ian Parrot (6 points, pole vault).
Randall and Reed were also part of the second place 4 X 100 meters (8 points), so make it 4 more points (2 per relay leg).
The Tigers won the meet by 27 points, and other Warsaw athletes in the past have scored in the aforementioned events, but the point differential between these spectacular performers and the athletes in years past might have possibly landed the Tigers below third place in the team standings.
By no means does this marginalize the collective performance of the team, but this continues what has been a banner year (literally and figuratively) among almost all Warsaw Tiger sports teams.
The class of 2025 is going to be missed, but kids having to go head-to-head or one on one with these special seniors will return next year unaffected by wear, and ready to step in the seniors’ shoes.
Another notable achievement for the Tiger throwers – Booren, Kauffman, and Leiter – is each member this senior discus trio exceeded 170 feet in each of their regional qualifying discus throws.
Numerous schools would love to have one person nailing 150 feet in the discus throw. This current year’s embarrassment of riches with three guys exceeding 510 feet among themselves will be tough to match, even with the number of Tiger throwers surpassing 120 feet or better waiting in the wings to learn and to grow.
Randall’s jaw-dropping 7’1.25” high jump performance and Reed’s 14-foot vault are part of what comprises a murderer’s row in the field events..
I was Mishawaka’s public address announcer for mid-season boys’ track meet hosting Warsaw, and even though I saw somewhat evenly spread results in the running events, I knew the Tigers were piling up the points in the grassy area behind Steele Stadium, and in the pits inside Mishawaka’s oval.
I was just waiting for the stat runners to bring me the jumps, vaults and throws to read for the crowd as they customarily do much later in the chilly evening’s meet.
Although what we are witnessing in 2025 is not a shock if you’ve tracked the progression of these athletes, it is a pleasant surprise how deep Warsaw has become in field events. One recent year, the Tigers’ pole vaulters pushed them over the top in a Northern Lakes Conference championship meet over Concord, who was leading with all the other 15 completed events.
If the talented mix of the next men up trains as hard as these current athletes of note, it would be fun to see how closely the kinder come to some of the marks I’ve mentioned, or maybe even continue this freakish trend of exponential progress these young men are making.
