Congratulations to 07 Alum Lee Moore for qualifying for the NCAA DI National Track and Field Championships beginnning on June 11. Lee, who runs for Ole Miss, set a new PR last weekend in Fayetteville Ark with a 50.64 time in the 400 meter hurdles, the 15th fastest collegiate time in the country this year. The meet this year is at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. Good luck to Lee next week.
I would be the first to admit that when we left the state track meet a year ago I thought we would have a very tough rebuilding job this year. We graduated an outstanding group of runners who had excelled individually and as a team. What a pleasant surprise this season gave us as we saw a very young group of guys blossom and form a team that was leading the state track meet with 3 events remaining. Much credit is due Coaches Harrison, McKay, and Tyler along with Coach Rutledge for their inspiration and detemination to get the most from the team. Also a special thanks to a small but determined senior group for establishing a great attitude that never failed our guys. Sam Goldstein, DeAndre Jones, Nathaniel Kastan, Chris Taylor, and Josh Vieira provided great unselfish leadership.
Our team was led in point production by our two multi-event specialist Barret Folk (11) and Stephond Allmond (10). These two accounted for a combined 345 points this season including over a third of the points scored by our team in the regional and state meet. For this impressive performance we are awarding both of these guys the Robert Hussey Track Most Outstanding Award.
Our sprinters also excelled this year. Keith McBride (10) won the 100 at the region with Elliott Bryant (10) nipping at his heels and at the state Elliot switched the order as they finished 3rd and 4th. Hank Hill (10) and Chris Taylor (12) combined with Keith and Elliott to give us an outstanding 4*100 that won the region and finished 5th at state. The 4*200 team replaced Taylor with Wilson Luttrell (9) and set a new school record in winning the regional meet, then with Hill injured at state saw Jared Davis fill in so well that we reset that record at 1:29.84. The 4*400 team of Bryant, Luttrell, Davis and Matthew Murphy (10) also had an excellent year running an outstanding time at the regional meet against an all senior team from ECS and then finished 4th at the state meet. Murphy also won the 400 dash at the region and finished 5th at the state.
Our distance runners came through at the end with a great regional performance by Matt Grisham (11) in the 3200 and 1600. Spencer Hunt (10), Bobby Bell (10) and Shae Gabrielleschi (9) joined Murphy in the 4*800 as they surprised everyone with a 3rd place regional finish and also qualified for state.
Our throwers faced tough competition from the always strong group from CBHS but Michael Delugach was a solid competitor throughout the season. But our jumpers were consistently strong. Folk and Goldstein both cleared 14'0" in the pole vault. Folk, Taylor, Davis, and Taylor Reed (11) gave the Owls 4 people who cleared 6"0" or better in the high jump. Allmond, Folk, and Davis also excelled at the triple jump with Allmond setting a new school record at 44' 0". Allmond also was a prodigous long jumper where he won the region and finished 4th at state.
Congratulations to our entire team for an outstanding season that included first place finishes at the Harding Relays, APSU Governor's Cup, CBHS Invitational and the D-II West Regional meet and an overall record of 67 wins and 8 losses.
The boys performed with a great deal of heart this past Friday. We had outstanding performances across the board with only a couple of minor miscues and earned 4th place overall. Complete results for our meet can be found at http://www.tssaa.org/2007Champions/StateTrack/DIIBoysResults.htm. Our individual results can be found by clicking here. Also you can see our top scorers for the meet by clicking here. One highlight from the meet was our 4*200 relay team setting a new school record which we had just set last week at the regional meet.
A special thanks to Coach Bakke for driving the team to Murfreesboro and also for videotaping much of the meet. Thanks to the parents for their support with drinks and snacks.
I have been constantly amazed this year by our team and their ability despite their youth t o find ways to manufacture points. We had a very difficult opponent in CBHS who had tremendous depth in the distance events and at first glance winning the regional team championship seemed almost impossible. But throughout the meet our guys scratched, jumped, clawed and ran with a fearsome determination that allowed us to build a 32 point lead with only 3 events to go. When CBHS went 1-2-3 in the 800 that brought then to within 8 points. Then in the 200 they went 1 & 3 and we were 2nd all of sudden the lead had vanished and we were tied goin into the final event the 4*400. Our team consists of 1 junior, 2 sophmores and a freshman but all of us knew the team title was ours as we finished almost 10 seconds ahead of the Brothers.
There were many highlights to the meet. Regional championships were won by Stephond Allmond (Decathlon, long jump, triple jump), Keith McBride (100) Matthew Murphy (400), Barret Folk (300 hurdles), the 400 relay team (Elliott Bryant, McBride, Hank Hill, Chris Taylor), and the 800 relay team (Bryant, McBride, Hill, Wilson Luttrell). The 800 relay team set a new school record.
Other key contributors were:
Matt Grisham (2nd in the 3200 and 4th in the 1600)
Jared Davis (3rd in the decathlon, 2nd in the high jump, 5th in the triple jump and ran a leg of the 1600 relay).
Barret Folk (2nd in the decathlon, pole vault and 110 hurdles)
Elliott Bryant gave 3 outstanding performances leading off our relay teams and also finished 2nd in the 100
Matthew Murphy (3200 relay and 1600 relay).
Next week many of these guys will travel to Murfeesboro to compete in the state track meet where we hope to see more of the same form our team.
Today we have prelims in the 100 and 200 and also the finals in the 3200. These events begins at 5:00. We will monitor the weather throughout the day and of course have safety as our number one priority but we do need to get this done today even if it means we have to run in the rain or delay things a little to let a storm pass by.
Coaches,
Please look through this and verify your entries. Remember if you wish to make any changes please email me by 5:00pm on Monday, May 12. Tuesday morning we will have the final entries posted. Also please check your times particularly for the sprints and hurdles. If these times are not FAT please let me know so I can adjust. We should be able to verify times from bigger meets.
Congratulations to Ayana Fletcher-Tyson and Stephond Allmond for claiming individual championships in the D-II West Region Pentathlon and Decathlon. For Ayana this was her third straight title.
