MAKING A CONNECTION — Fairmont’s Taylor Austin (right) makes a smooth handoff to Caleb Chambers during the 4x400-meter relay race at Friday night’s Sentinel Relays track & field meet at Bonk Track in Fairmont. The Cardinals went on to win the relay race en route to earning a threepeat as the Class AA team champions. (Photo by Greg Abel)

FAIRMONT — Fairmont senior thrower Sawyer Tordsen set a new Sentinel Relays and school record in the discus in the annual meet on Friday at Bob Bonk Track in Fairmont, winning the discus with a throw of 165 feet, 3 inches.

The previous Sentinel Relays discus record was 163-2 set in 2004 by Hutchinson’s Lydon Murtha and the school record was set in 1966 by Steve Ring.

“I felt I had a chance to break the record heading into the meet,” Tordsen said. “I felt pretty laser focused on first throw and felt good when I let it go. My next two throws weren’t that great, but I had the record on my first throw.”

Family, friends, teammates and coaches congratulated Tordsen after the official mark was announced.

“I have been throwing well and I had momentum after my throws in the Hamline meet,” Tordsen said. “I feel good that I broke the record and now I want to win the discus in the upcoming True Team and get some points for our team.”

Tordsen beat his main competitors Jackson County Central’s Caleb Vancura and Fairmont teammate Hank Artz.

Vancura was second with a throw of 153-8 and Artz was third with a throw of 140-2. Artz also was second to Vancura in the shot put with a personal-record throw of 50-7. Tordsen took third with a mark of 50-0 1/2.

In the team scores, the Fairmont Cardinals won the Sentinel Relays for a third straight year on Friday, earning 130 points.

The Jackson County Central Huskies were a distant runner-up at 99 points, followed by the Hutchinson Tigers with 83, the Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial/Nicollet Knights with 79, the St. James Area Saints with 71, the Blue Earth Area Bucs with 52 and the Minneaplis South Tigers with 42.

Those were Fairmont’s highlights in the field events.

“This is a memorable meet for us,” Fairmont head coach Jesse Walters said. “The kids have had a month of meets and practice to get ready for this meet and they did a good job. Now we get ready for True Team and we’ll see what we can do there. We have a stretch of big meets ahead of us.”

Nelson Remington won three events for the Cardinals, the 100-, 200- and 1,600-meter wheelchair events with times of 19.19, 4:57.67. His time in the 100 was a season-best and the times in the 200 and 1,600 were personal-bests.

Landon Gilbertson of the Cardinals ran well in the hurdles, winning the 110-meters with a personal-best time of 16.88 and was second in the 300 with a personal-best 42.75.

In the 4×100 relay, the team of Charles Neusch, Blaze Geiger, Isaiah Lockwood and Trey Tumbleson won with a time of 46.24. They won the race by the narrowest of margins over Blue Earth Area (.06 seconds) and Hutchinson (.20).

Fairmont’s Taylor Austin, Caleb Chambers, Geiger and Nolan Schultze took the top spot in the 4×400 relay with a time of 3:37.75.

Trey Tumbleson was third in the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.71, and teammate Gavin Artner took third in the 3,200-meter run with a time of 10:59.72.

For the Cardinals, Jaron Schutz ran third in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 18.48, while the group of Neusch, Chambers, Austin and Schultze placed second in the 4×200 relay with a time of 1:35.06.

Jordan Thompson, Andrew Haugen, Jaydon Putney and Ty Nawrocki finished third in the 4×800 relay, running a time of 9:20.55 for the Cardinals, and their medley relay team of Lockwood, Geiger, Chambers and Nawrocki took third with a time of 4:02.73.

Blue Earth Area had a champion as Austin Stauffer won the high jump with a mark of 5-8.

Nick Nelson of the Bucs finished third in the 100-meter dash with a personal-record time of 12.04, and teammate Jacob Grandgenett took second in the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.66.

The Bucs’ 4×100 relay team of Nelson, Gage Barker, Jack Norman and Grandgenett took second with a time of 46.30.

Fairmont visits Fairbault Bell Field for a meet 3 p.m. Class A True Team Section Meet on Tuesday, while Blue Earth Area competes in a Class A True Team Section Meet at 3 p.m. Tuesday at United South Central in Wells.