By Dana Harding (For OzarksSportsZone.com)

SPRINGFIELD, MO – Wednesday's Central Ozark Conference West Division championships featured a pair of thrilling finishes.

After the Carthage girls benefitted from a late surge to capture the girls title, Webb City completed a huge comeback to finish with a tie in the boys division with Willard.

GIRLS DIVISION

1st    Carthage, 173
2nd    Webb City, 165.5
3rd    Joplin, 139
4th    Republic, 111.5
5th    Willard, 82
6th    Neosho, 46
7th    Parkview, 10

The last time the Carthage girls won a conference title, YouTube was busy celebrating its second week of existence.

"In 2005 –before we were in the COC – that was the last time we won conference," Tigers head coach Jared Cristy said. "We were in the Southwest Conference then."

The Tigers recorded 173 points in the win, besting runner-up Webb City's 165.5 effort.

With the 14-team COC splitting its conference championships into two divisions this year, Cristy felt his squad would be right in the mix.

"If we'd had a whole conference with 10 teams before,  it would have been harder to win," Cristy said. "So this gave us an opportunity against some new teams, but it's pretty much the same teams that were in our conference before. It's just a smaller conference now with seven teams."

Carthage's 173-point effort was made possible by a host of standout performances, including hurdler Elsie Willis.

The sophomore Willis captured both 100- and 300-meter events, setting the tone early for the Tigers' championship hopes.

Carthage received another significant push in the throwing events.

Not only did junior Chasity Shaw win both the shot put and discus, the Tigers added a second-place finisher in each event with Karlie Nichols and Olivia Jones.

Nichols also finished fourth in the discus.

"We had a senior discus thrower, Karlie Nichols, who hasn't thrown disc much all year," Cristy said. "She stepped up and got fourth today and got a PR. All of our throwers did fantastic. They all three were in the top five in each of the throws. So that was fantastic for us. That's a lot of points right there."

Sophomore triple jumper London Shepherd added a fifth first-place finish to give Carthage a late push towards the top of the standings heading into the final events.

"We had three sections we perform the most," Cristy said. "Hurdles and throws were our top pointers, and jumps were our next high pointer. Throws have been kind of our leading point getter all year, and then hurdles as well. We've had one girl in hurdles (Willis) that has gone off really well the last two weeks, improving our time drastically, and our jumps did very good today as well. So those kind of carried us point wise, and then our distance girls stepped up and ran more than they've had to do before to kind of offset Webb City's point total, which is what really helped us."

BOYS DIVISION

Tie 1st    Webb City, 142
               Willard, 142
3rd          Joplin, 133
4th          Neosho, 121
5th          Carthage, 96
6th          Republic, 72
7th          Parkview, 22