Free State’s Zack Sanders competes in the boys 110-meter hurdles Friday at FSHS..

The start of track season has been a rocky one for Free State senior Ryan Liston, but no one would be able to tell by how he competed in the FSHS Invitational on Friday.

Liston won the boys 3,200 meters and helped Free State take first in the 4×800 relay, but his biggest victory was just being healthy enough to compete in the Firebirds’ first meet.

“I actually split my toe open and wasn’t able to run over spring break,” Liston said. “At the beginning of this week, I started running again because I got my stitches out. We had a workout, which was doing 800s, and on the first and second 800, the tendon that connects my shin to my knee was hurting really bad. So I told my coach, and I went up to the trainer, and she looked at it and iced it and stuff and said because I split my toe open, I had been limping on my foot, so I was putting pressure on different parts of my knee to overcompensate.”

Liston, who injured his toe in a freak accident as he was getting up from his bed, was quick to credit his teammates in both events, as senior Cole Stallard took the lead on the anchor leg of the 4×800 relay to defeat Olathe East, and senior Thomas Becker finished less than a second behind him in the 3,200.

“(Becker) has helped me pace before like last year in the two-mile,” Liston said. “If I was feeling a little off, he’d make sure to get in front of me and start me back up.”

The Firebird boys added six second-place finishes in their season debut, including sophomore Zack Sanders being the runner-up in the 110 and 300 hurdles.

“Zack Sanders for the hurdles ran really well,” FSHS coach Jordan Rose said. “I thought it was really fun for him to come out and step into that role, so that was nice.”

Juniors Tanner Hockenbury (1,600), Ronald White (100), Ethan Donley (800) and senior Nick Hocking (discus) rounded out the Firebirds who finished as runners-up.

“It’s great to see them starting off kind of where we ended up last year,” Rose said. “It’s nice to see that at the beginning and not have to build to that and then start over again. I was happy to see that they were still performing at that level. That sets a really good repertoire for the rest of the team to be able to keep up to that level.”

Free State’s girls squad got off to a hot start as well, with three event champions. The Firebirds were strong in the field events, as junior Callie Hicks won the pole vault, and senior Hannah Shoemaker won the discus. Senior Gabbi Dabney added the third FSHS first-place finish by winning the 100 hurdles and nearly picked up another victory when she took second in the high jump.

Dabney was not the only Firebird who was just a hair shy of winning two events. Sophomore Emily Venters placed second in both the 800 and 1,600, but missed out on first in each event by a combined .25 second.

The Firebirds will quickly turn their focus to Tuesday’s City Showdown at Lawrence High, a dual meet the FSHS boys and LHS girls won last year.

“I’m glad we had this first meet as the first one to get us ready so we know what to do when we compete against them,” said Free State sophomore Kahler Wiebe, who finished third in girls javelin Friday.

While Rose hopes FSHS can win the meet on both sides this year, she is really looking forward to the atmosphere of the City Showdown, which will start at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“We have a good, competitive relationship with Lawrence High, so that’s always a really fun meet to start off our year to see where we’re at and to get in their together and have some good town rivalry going between the two of us,” Rose said.

Free State Invitational

Friday at Free State High School

Free State boys results (Top six finishers)

4×800 relay – 1. Free State A, 8:31.19; 5. Free State B, 9:01.25.

110 hurdles – 2. Zack Sanders, 15.57 seconds.

100 – 2. Ronald White, 11.48 seconds; 4. Avin Lane, 11.68 seconds; 5. Khaury El-Amin, 11.75 seconds.

1600 – 2. Tanner Hockenbury, 4:39.12.

300 hurdles – 2. Zack Sanders, 42.38 seconds.

800 – 2. Ethan Donley, 2:07.74.

3200 – 1. Ryan Liston, 10:03.43; 2. Thomas Becker, 10:04.25.

Pole vault – 4. Cameron Hodge, 8 feet 6 inches.

Discus – 2. Nick Hocking, 141 feet 6 inches.

Free State girls results (Top six finishers)

4×800 relay – 4. Free State A, 10:43.42.

100 hurdles – 1. Gabbi Dabney, 15.35 seconds.

1600 – 2. Emily Venters, 5:12.37.

4×100 relay – 6. Free State A, 54.88 seconds.

400 – 2. Laura Kennard, 1:02.93.

300 hurdles – 5. Abigail Zenger, 55.53 seconds.

800 – 2. Emily Venters, 2:26.09; 5. Marlee Yost-Wolff, 2:39.26.

200 – 3. Laura Kennard, 27.52 seconds.

3200 – 4. Kiran Cordes, 12:17.69.

Pole vault – 1. Callie Hicks, 11 feet.

Shot put – T-3. Jillian Schuler, 33 feet 2 inches; 6. Hannah Walter, 32 feet 8 inches.

Discus – 1. Hannah Shoemaker, 109 feet 11.5 inches.

Javelin – 3. Kahler Wiebe, 100 feet 6 inches.

High jump – 2. Gabbi Dabney, 5 feet.