Adam Czerniewski made sure that he wasn’t going to leave Jefferson City empty handed for the second year in a row when he competed in the 800-meter relay at the Class 3 state track championship meet on May 28 at Adkins Stadium.

The Montgomery County junior picked up his first all-state medal after helping the 4x200 team finish sixth with a school-record time of 1 minute, 31.96 seconds in the finals. It’s the first time since 2014 a MCHS boys relay team earned all-state honors.

A year ago, Czerniewski made his first trip to state and competed on a 4x100 team that came up one place short of getting a medal at state, finishing ninth. He said he was happy that he got to stand on the awards podium this year.

“It’s a great feeling,” Czerniewski said.

Czerniewski ran the anchor leg of a relay team that included junior Dominic Luttrell, sophomore Jacer Brower and freshman Jadrian Thurmon. Luttrell, Brower and Thurmon competed at state for the first time.

The squad broke its own school-record mark of 1:32.29 that was set in its first-place finish at the District 4 championship meet on May 14 at Jim Blacklock Field.

“It was pretty funny that we got the medal because we got thrown together at districts,” Brower said. “We never ran together. Now, we’re here with a medal.”

All four runners competed together in the 4x200 for the first time this season at the District 4 meet. The team broke the previous school record time of 1:34.09 that was set last year by Czerniewski, Mendoza, Alec Johnson and Aidan Hall.

The following week, the squad qualified for state by finishing second with a 1:32.90 at the Sectional 2 meet, which was also held at MCHS.

The team qualified for finals by finishing eighth with a 1:32.50 in preliminaries on May 27, edging Jefferson High School of Festus by nine-hundredths of a second.

The Wildcats also had a 4x100 team that competed at state, but came up one place short of qualifying for finals, finishing eighth in preliminaries. Czerniewski, Luttrell and seniors Ty Leu and Gavin Mendoza competed in the 4x100.

MCHS coach Stephanie Finke said she was pleased with the efforts from the 4x200.

“I thought my 4x100 would make it (to finals), but my 4x200 would not,” Finke said. “They surprised me. I’m glad they came out here and competed. I said to them that if you guys can run faster than 1:32, you won’t be last. So that was their goal. They came out and ran a 1:31. I’m pretty proud of how they turned around and said, ‘OK, I’m going to do this. Let’s go.’ I gave them a challenge and they met the challenge. They didn’t back down from it.”

Luttrell, who ran the opening leg of the relay, said he was thrilled to end his first season with the MCHS track team with a medal. He transferred from Eldon before the school year began.

“I couldn’t have done it without these guys for sure,” said Luttrell, who competed in track for the first time this spring. “We definitely had great teamwork with great handoffs. I’m definitely going to come back next year with this team.”

Brower ran the second leg of the relay. The sophomore already has high hopes for the relay team next year.

“I think we can turn that 1:31 into a 1:20 something easily,” said Brower, who also competed in the 400 at state, but didn’t get out of preliminaries. “We can be on the top of that next year.”

Thurmon, who ran the third leg, said he enjoyed the experience of competing at the state meet for the first time.

“I never would have dreamed of going to state in my freshman year,” Thurmon said.