BANGOR — Senior Matt Bartels won three events and finished second in a fourth to led the Hillsboro boys to a third-place finish at the Scenic Bluffs Conference Championships last Tuesday.

Bartels impressive 38-point individual performance included victories in the 100-meter dash (:11.24), the 200 (:22.71) and the long jump (19–6). He added a second-place finish in the 400 (:53.18) for good measure.

For all of Bartels' heroics, the shorthanded Tigers couldn’t overcome the absence of three missing seniors that also play baseball in the spring.

Even without long jump and triple jump school record holder Brandon Stanek, sprinter Chucky Anderson and thrower Matt Anderson, the Tigers scored 91 team points and finished third, but they were well back of champion Bangor (178) and runner-up Brookwood (117).

“We didn’t have a few of our dual sport baseball players, so that put the boys at a distinct disadvantage, which resulted in us scratching seven individual events immediately,” said Hillsboro head coach Chad Schmidt. “That ended our chance for a conference championship, but we had a number of standout performances. Matt Bartels winning three events and placing second in one event and  Noah Mayberry and Warren Paulson, also had run impressive times again.”

Mayberry, a senior distance runner, placed second in the 800 (2:04.52) and third in the 1,600 (4:47.0).

Paulson, a junior hurdler, finished second in the 110-meter high hurdles (:16.55) and third in the (:43.90) 300 intermediate hurdles with personal-best times in both events. Paulson also finished sixth in the high jump (5–6).

Senior Max Sebranek was hoping to score big in the hurdles as well, but he was disqualified in the 110 preliminaries before finishing second in the 300 hurdles (:42.39).

The Hillsboro girls’ 4x800 relay team of Adriana Reese, Breanna Beaver, Michaela Bach and Shauna Parish won a conference title with a winning-time of 11:04.01.

Bach also turned in a third-place performance in the 3,200 (14:03.10). Reese finished fifth in the event (14:38.28).

Beaver (2:50.34) and Parish (2:53.67) finished sixth and seventh respectively in the 800.

Mackenzie Sullivan finished fourth in the high jump (4–6) and eighth in the long jump (13–8).

Morgan Huntley was fourth in the shot put (30–3¾) and Bridgett Madden took fifth in the discus (79–4).

The Hillsboro girls scored 63 points and finished fifth out of eight teams.

Cashton dominated the girls’ title scoring 188 points, 58 more than second-place Brookwood (130).

“The Scenic Bluffs Conference teams for the girls have a lot of good athletes between all of the schools, so it is tough for the girls to have a lot of opportunities to  score many points,” said Schmidt.

Hillsboro was scheduled to participate in the WIAA Division 3 Onalaska Luther Regional on Tuesday.

The top four finishers in each event will advance to compete in Friday’s WIAA D3 Boscobel Sectional with a chance to move on to next week’s WIAA State Championships at UW–La Crosse.