BLUE EARTH &045; With some of his hurdlers nursing injuries, United South Central boys’ track and field coach Kent Viesselman did not have an entry in the high hurdle shuttle relay at Saturday’s Blue Earth Buc Invitational.

It cost the Rebels the championship.

But it made for one exciting meet.

The Rebels finished in third place, a scant four points out of first. After two errors in scoring were corrected, Fairmont emerged as the winner with 336 points. Blue Earth was second with 333 points, the Rebels third with 332.

The Buc Invite, scored in True Team fashion, is set up to favor those teams with depth and balance, which in the past has favored the Rebels. This time it played a part in their shortfall, starting with the first event, the high hurdle relay.

&uot;In the past, we’ve dominated the high hurdle shuttle relay,&uot; said Viesselman. &uot;Because we’ve been deep in the hurdles. But, this year, we had some of our hurdlers nursing injuries, and decided that we wouldn’t take a chance on aggravating those injuries, so we spotted Fairmont 24 points and Blue Earth Area 18. In spite of that, the kids were able to go with the best in the South Central Conference throughout the rest of the meet. On a great day for a track meet, our kids posted 24 personal records and competed very well.&uot;

Adam Kruger had an outstanding day for the Rebels, winning both the shot put and the discus. In the discus, he teamed up with Randy Kauffmann for a 1-4 finish, making the event the best of the day for the Rebels.

Steven Wood blew away the field in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles, winning by more than 4 seconds with a personal-best time of 43.1.

The 4×100 relay team of Shea Kaiser, Callan Pitcher, Jon Voigt, and Bob Schmitz picked up the Rebels’ other first.

In one of the most tightly contested events of the day, the 100-meter dash, Kaiser and Jon Voigt finished third and fourth. The top four finishers were within 4/100ths of a second.

Other USC places: Justin Youngblom, second, 1600; Matt Mueller, sixth, 1600; Schmitz, third, 400 and seventh, triple jump; Voigt, fifth, 400 and second, pole vault; Eric Youngblom, fifth, 3200 and sixth, high jump; Spencer Niebuhr, fifth, pole vault; Kaiser, sixth, long jump; sprint medley relay, fourth (Wood, Trent Leesch, Erik Melby, Chris Vondracek); 4×200 relay, fourth (Stenzel, Melby, Leesch, Vondracek);4×400 relay, fifth (Kaiser, Melby, Justin Youngblom, Wood).