By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
There are 18 events at the upcoming Kansas State High School Activities Association Track and Field Championships in Wichita - 11 on the track and seven on the field. Athletes may compete in up to four of those events. Usually, jumpers jump and throwers throw. To qualify in the maximum four events, the state’s top field athletes usually compete in at least one event on the track.
Then there’s Cooper Ohnmacht. Thursday in Hays, the upcoming Great Bend High School senior qualified for state in four events. In a rare feat, all four qualifications came in field events.
Ohnmacht won regional titles in the triple jump and javelin. His triple jump of 47-5.5 beat the Hays field by more than four feet, and ranks No. 5 in Kansas this spring. As a freshman, Ohnmacht broke a 31-year-old school record in the event. Last spring, he reset that mark to 48 feet, three inches.
Ohnmacht’s javelin throw of 171-10 last Thursday beat the regional field by nearly 12 feet. He also finished second in the long jump at 21 feet, 11.5 inches, missing that regional crown by less than two inches. Ohnmacht also qualified for state in the high jump after clearing the bar at 6-0.
Thursday’s accomplishment puts Ohnmacht in with some elite company. In 2019, Nickerson’s Hunter Jones won the Class 4A state high jump title (6-10), finished second in the javelin (187-0), and placed fourth in the triple jump (43-9.5). His fourth event was a fifth-place finish in the 300m hurdles. Jones went on to become a two-time NCAA Div. II national champion decathlete, and attended the U.S. Olympic Trials while competing at Pitt State.
Andover’s Tayton Klein qualified for the NCAA Div. I National Championships as a junior at the University of Kansas in 2025. His collegiate numbers in the field are impressive: high jumping at 6-7, long jumping at 25-3.25, pole vaulting 15-7, and throwing the javelin 175-6. But in 2022, as a high school senior, Klein did much of his work on the track with Class 5A state titles in both hurdle events. He also won the state title in the long jump.
Like Jones and Klein, Southeast of Saline's Steve Fritz went on to become a great decathlete, winning an NJCAA national title, two Big Eight Conference titles while at Kansas State, and finishing fourth at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. Six of the 10 events in the decathlon are field events. In his senior season of high school, Fritz won Class 3A titles in both hurdle events, and placed sixth in the high jump.
In 2021, Sterling's Tyus Wilson led the state in the high jump and placed third in the Class 2A long jump. His other third-place state finish came in the 110m hurdles. Wilson went on to compete for the the University of Nebraska, won the 2025 U.S. national high jump title, and finished seventh in the world championships in Tokyo.
On the girls’ side, Gardner-Edgerton’s Kendra Wait pulled off an impressive four state titles in 2021, winning the 100m dash, long jump, shot put, and pole vault. She went on to play volleyball at Creighton University.
This year, Lakin's Aryn Michaelis qualified for state in the 3A high jump, long jump, triple jump, and 100m hurdles.
Ohnmacht enters the state track meet Friday and Saturday in Wichita as the two-time defending 5A champion in the triple jump.