MONMOUTH, ILL. — Justin Wimbish's (junior, Glendale, Ariz., Apollo HS) career-best effort in the long jump highlighted the Monmouth Fighting Scots Invitational for the Central College men's track and field team Saturday afternoon.

There were no team scores.    

Wimbish uncorked a leap of 23 feet, 4.5 inches to win the nine-man field. He surpassed his previous-best leap by over six inches. In the 200-meter dash, he was the runner-up in a time of 21.95 seconds.

"I thought Justin looked great," coach Joe Dunham said. "He made the 200 look easy. He will be busy next weekend at the conference meet."

???????Wimbish also ran the second leg of the third-place 4x100-meter relay squad. He was joined by Caleb Jennings (junior, Spirit Lake), Blake Morgan (junior, Story City, Roland-Story HS) and Connor Lewin (freshman, Stillman Valley, Ill.). Jennings, Morgan and Lewin placed third in the 4x400 relay with P.J. Carey (junior, Ankeny) in 3:23.66.

Junior Nathan Fitzgerald (Elkader, Central Elkader HS) swept through the shot put and discus throw with efforts of 47-5 and 145-9, respectively.

"It was great to see Nathan throwing well at this time of the year," Dunham said. "He continues to improve and I can't want to see what he does next week."
Mark Fairley (junior, Dubuque) led the Dutch in the 1,500-meter run, taking the title in 4:00.94. Isaac Steffensmeier (senior, Fort Madison) and Kyle Pape (sophomore, Dubuque, Wahlert Catholic HS) went No. 2 and No. 3 in 4:04.06 and 4:05.60, respectively.

Tanner Rathje (junior, Marion, Linn-Mar HS) topped the field in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 10:07.60.

???????The conference meet begins Thursday in Storm Lake with the first day of multi-event competition and continues through Saturday. The Dutch have won the last two team titles, and six of the last eight. Dunham believes there's a chance the Dutch can add to that list in what appears to be a wide-open competition.