ROCHESTER HILLS >> Rochester Adams boys team cleared the hurdles, both figuratively and literally, earlier on Friday night to make its last event of the evening that secured them victory status a relative breeze.

The Highlanders finished eighth in the 4×400 relay — the final race of the night at Oakland University — earning them just one point, but their total of 63 was still a dozen more than runner-up Clarkston, making Adams a winner at the 66th annual Oakland County Meet.

“It did,” said Adams head coach Eric Lohr when asked if the previous points accrued took the pressure of his team’s relay quartet in the last event. “We had no expectation of being in position to win the whole meet, and then seeing the scores as they started to pile up, and then, you know what, we’ve got a 13-point buffer and nobody ran the 200, then Gavin (Wilkins) scored (two points) in the 3,200. It was like, wow, we wrapped it up earlier than expected.”

Their bread was buttered to the tune of 35 points resulting from hurdles finishes. Adams senior Michael Wilkerson (14.42 seconds) won the 110-meter event, with Lachlan Tillotson and Steven Wilkerson also taking fourth and sixth place, respectively. Then, in the 300 hurdles, Michael Wilkerson again took first (39.04), Tillotson captured third and Steven ended in eighth.

“It’s been our strong event all year long,” Lohr said. “It’s one of those things where we know we’re going to get points, it’s just how many points? The coaching with the hurdle crew, they do a fantastic job.”

Adams has now won the county meet twice in the past four years. Walled Lake Central, last year’s winner, took fifth with 42 points. Between the two, Clarkston accumulated 51 points, Detroit Catholic Central took third with 48, and Novi finished fourth with 47.

Lakeland (41 points), Lake Orion (35), West Bloomfield (32), Detroit Country Day (27.5) and Troy Athens (25.5) rounded out the top 10 in order.

Along with WL Central, Novi put itself in good position earlier in the day with 38 points out of the handful of field events, including a first-place finish by senior Odin Gulledge in pole vault, which required navigating the air on a day when the wind played a factor in many ways.

“I felt alright,” said Gulledge, whose best clearance was 13 feet, six inches, matching his performance at last year’s state meet. (They were) not the best jumps, but it is what it is.”

Gulledge cleared the 15-foot barrier by three inches last last month. Talking about the breakthrough, he said, “Getting all that air time, it was pretty awesome. I worked hard over the offseason to get there. I think working on the take-off and the plant a lot in the offseason, then coming back and just getting faster and stronger (made it happen).”

Admitting that the weather affected his commitment to jumps, Gulledge holds the fourth-best qualifying mark entering the D1 state meet and said that the proper execution should allow him to clear 15-6 in Kentwood.

Other than Gulledge, Novi senior Jordan Paige won the long jump with an attempt of 23 feet, two inches, while teammates Drelen Lillard and Michael Schave finished just behind high jump winner Giovanni Charles of Walled Lake Central (6-05).

Also from WL Central, Garrod Alexander (56 feet, 2.25 inches) edged out Stoney Creek’s Spencer Beckeman to win shot put by just an inch-and-a-half. Lakeland junior Andrew Neumann won the discus event with a heave of 171 feet, 10 inches.

On the track, Groves senior Noah Sanders won the 100 dash, Samson Gash of Detroit Catholic Central won the 200 (22.23 seconds) in what was a three-man final, and Southfield Christian’s Brock Morris, who came runner-up to Gash in the 200, took first in the 400 (49.20).

In the 800, Royal Oak Shrine junior Abenezer Cerone beat out at least several competitors with more favorable entry times to win in 1:55.54. Clarkston’s Jaxon Nowik took the 1,600 run (4:22.27), while Bloomfield Hills senior Taye Levenson outpaced the field handily, winning the 3,200 event by over 20 seconds with a time of 9:20.76.

Walled Lake Northern went the distance in the 4×800 relay with the team of Finn Gammerath, Sam Fairchild, Chase Griffith and Nathan Bruss taking first by over four ticks with a time of 8:01.39. That marked an improvement of about two seconds over the quartet’s regional time. The Knights were one of five teams that qualified out of their region in the event.

“We’ve just kind of been focusing on the last big meets of the year as it dwindles down,” WL Northern head coach Jeff McNeil said. “They don’t have such a workload from the dual meets and other different ones that we go to, so we’re dialing in as we’re trying to taper it down and firing at the right time.”

Lake Orion won a pair of relays — the 4×200 (James Bambard, Malek Pulford, Benjamin Lako and Fernando Bartolome; 1:29.85) and the 4×400 (Bartolome, Lako, Cole Shoskey and Payton Lyles; 3:23.97). Meanwhile, Detroit Country Day (Tyler Newby, Ashton Collins, Derrick Williams and Darryl Carter) won by the thinnest margin, edging out West Bloomfield by just one-hundredth of a second with a time of 43.33.