TN State Indoor Championship Meet - 2015
The closer I got to Johnson City, the more I was reminded of how difficult it is to train for the indoor season. Snow, ice, damaged trees, and just down right cold. Just a bit more difficult to find the best time to get a run outdoors during the winter months. If it's not snowing, it's raining and if it's not raining, then it's cold and windy, and so on and so on... You certainly have to hand it to the athletes that made their way into qualifying for this first year State Indoor Championships Meet!
As I look over all the results from the meet, there definitely were some surprises and some races that ended up how I thought they would. Still, for those of us coming from the far west side of the state, no doubt the trip was worth it.
The 60M dash was fast and tight as the top three finishers re-set the top 2nd, 3rd and 4th marks for the state. Alex Wilson (Tyner Academy) moves into the #2 TN spot with her 7.64, then McKenzie Ethridge (Signal Mountain) takes 2nd place at this meet and clocks the 3rd top spot in TN with only a hundredth of a second behind Alex with a 7.65. And setting a 4th best in TN mark with 7.70, was Diamond Battle of Battle Ground. All these top three girls bettered the times they set to qualify for the final -- and that is impressive in itself! On the boy's side, Chris Stokes won in 6.99, which was a couple hundredths off his top mark in the state. Bryson Stephens (Morristown East) moves into the top ten for TN with his 7.17 time as does Malik Hardy (Oak Ridge, 7.18) and Bryce Barrett (Dobyns-Bennett, 7.19).
In the 60 Hurdles, by winning the event Walter Pate keeps his 2nd overall TN spot intact with an 8.35 that was just over his season best this year. Haleigh Montgomery (East Hamilton) moves into the Mile Split Silver standard with her 9.11 win in the event. Also running a Silver Standard at the meet was Madeline Ballard (Ravenwood) with a 9.22. And just under the standard, but a season best time was Bethany Rich (Rossview) who placed third in the event with a 9.47. Some pretty good marks in the two 60 events!
The 800 race for the girls was a bit of a tactical race more than a big sprint race. The pack stayed tight for most of the race with the top 8 or 9 girls running almost hand in hand the whole way. Calli Coggins (Independence) made her way to the front of the pack with about 200 meters left and clocked a 2.21.77 for that win. Right behind her, the top 5 finishers were so tightly packed, the photo finish system had to get a workout in there too! Megan Murray (West) came in second with 2.23.03, Kaitlyn Lay (Halls) third in 2:23.45, Meghan Underwood (St. Benedicts) fourth in 2:24.03 and Hannah Caldwell 5th in 2:24.84. That's a pretty tightly packed group for almost three laps of this 283 meter track. Megan Murray and Kaitlyn Lay moved up in the rankings with their races, getting into the top 10 for TN in the event. Although a couple of the athletes didn't beat their best, they still maintained their spot in the top 10 - Hannah Caldwell stays at 8th spot and Meghan Underwood maintains the #2 overall spot in TN for this season. Neither of these girls are seniors, so you can expect them to continually improve. As a matter of fact, I happen to know Meghan Underwood's coach pretty well and he said to keep an eye on this young freshman. He also said once she gets more of this type of competition and experience, she is really going to be the athlete to watch! I tend to agree!
The favorite before the race started was going to be Zach Long who is the #2 ranked 800M indoor athlete for TN this season and #7 nationally as of today. He did just what we thought and looked for that lead right away and kept it while running a 1:55. In second was Logan McKenzie (McMinn County) who ran a season best 1:57.22 and got himself into the Mile Split gold standard with that race and at the #6 spot in TN. Just a hair behind Logan was Jose Parrilla (Hardin Valley), also running a season best of 1:57.88 and putting him into the Mile Split silver standard and 8th overall 800M runner in TN.
Hardin Valley seemed to be a name you heard a lot at this meet, over the last few years, they seemed to continually improve in this sport. At this meet, the boys Hardin Valley team took the top spot and third overall for the girls. While I'm on the team ranks, Brentwood took the girls side with Ravenwood the runner up. Morristown east was the boy's runner up just ahead of Tullahoma (by two points).
Before I talk about some of the other running events, let's take a look at the field. At this meet, the field and runs were going on simultaneously so there was always something you could watch. If you were in the stands that made for a fun Track & Field meet to watch. If you were on the infield, well, you had to do a lot of walking to catch all the action. The girls triple jump was won by Jordyn Lesh of Harpeth Hall jumped 38-5.5 and that put her in the #3 spot for TN this season. That certainly has her stepping into the outdoor season with great experience and ready to compete.
Tamia Crockett (Hardin Valley) took the shot put state title with a throw of 40-8, which is short of her season best that she did earlier this indoor season but still puts her as the favorite in late May at MTSU. She also got the runner up spot in the weight throw with a 49-2 in that event. Savannah Marlow (Cherokee) was the TN State champion in the weight throw with a 52-5 that put her in the top 12 of the nation. Savannah threw a top 5 toss at the outdoor state championships last season but clearly has a talent for this weight throw... hmm... wonder if anyone ever thought about looking at pushing for this event (or the Hammer, something she also is pretty good at).
The boy's high jump was one of those nail bitter events once the bar got up to the 6-6 mark. Jordan Scott (Maryville) was one of the top three going into the 6' 6" height where he cleared but couldn't get the next height and ended up in a really strong 3rd place in this state championship. Then it came down (or should I say up!) to Christian Stumpf (Daniel Boone) and Isaiah Kyle (Morristown) who took their time to clear the 6-8 mark, but both finally did. After their three really close attempts, neither could get over the 6-10 at this meet but I would think we'll be seeing these guys battling out again in May. Those jumps put then 1 and 2 in the state for the indoor season (Isaiah 1st, Christian 2nd) and top 30 in the nation as well. And by the way, with Jordan's jump at this meet, he gets the #3 in TN spot! On the girl's side, Hannah Beth Moorhouse (Morristown-West) jumped to 5-5 and now stands at the top of the TN state rankings with that leap. Not a bad day of high jumping for these TN athletes and I've said it before, this is certainly a springboard for going into the outdoor season just a step ahead.
In the boys pole vault, Sam Carey (Montgomery Bell) matched his highest of the season -- and actually his best of his career -- with a 14-0 vault that vaults (hmm...) to the top of the TN ranking for the event. He's looks like he may be the one to keep a close eye on for the D2 class at the end of May. The next few vaulters made this event into to a photo finish in its own way... four vaulters cleared the 13-6 mark -- Sam McCay (Hardin Valley), Joey Jennings (Jefferson County), Matt Ward (Franklin Road) and Jack Crouch (Centennial) placing in this order. Being a former vaulter myself, I have some bias, but this really was a lot of fun to watch!
The boy's shot put brought out some of the big guns for sure with three marks over 50. Alexander Sleenhof (Ravenwood) was third with 52-6 that brought him into the 4th best in the state. In second place was Chrokee's Evan McCracken with a throw of 58-1 and then Brett Neeley took the state championship with a 59-3. The top 2 spots was a flip-flop of the final standings for the indoor shot as Evan is the top ranked shot put in the state and Brett an inch or so behind. And yes, the shot put is a game of inches and these two athletes proved it at this meet for sure -- anything can happen during the indoor season!
There was no doubt that every event at this meet was worth watching and had some great performances, I wish I could write about all of them, but I'm not. So moving on to the last couple of events to talk about -- the 2 and 1 mile races. I've always been involved in the sprints and so the longer runs (1 mile) and distance runs (2 mile) weren't always a favorite of mine. Well... not so at this meet, that's for sure.
Let's start with the boy's mile. I consider the mile a middle distance event but in high school most are considering it a distance event. But the way these guys ran.... Well, that's some fast distance then! Zach Long (Grainger), Ben Weisel (Father Ryan) and Gavin Hasty (Brentwood) gave us the kind of race that the people behind the program "Bring Back the Mile" would be excited to watch! The race started out fast and got faster as the laps counted down. In third was Gavin with a 4:21.55 that moved him into the Gold Standard and puts him in the #6 overall spot in TN. Ben ran a couple of seconds slower than his best this season, but wasn't able to take Zach in this race. Zach ran just about a second ahead to get the state championship title and set the bar at 4:20.39 for someone to challenge next year!
Maybe the guy's mile was so fast because they just watched the girls run a pretty darn fast race themselves! Julia Rizor, of Beech, came into this race as the favorite, but if you know anything about indoor racing, especially anything from 600M's and above, anything can happen. The turns are different, the air different, the lighting, the crowd, and everything else... so athletes respond differently to these venues. But fast, well, fast is fast and these athletes made sure that little variable was at the fore front of the race. Julia ended up with a 5:12.21 that put her in the silver spot of this race (3rd). The top two came down to the last few steps to figure out who would win -- Annika Sleenhof (Ravenwood) ran a 5:10.71 to take second to Hailey Hendry (Brentwood) by less than half a second in 5:10.54. There's a saying when people tell you to take a rest... it's "take five".... Well, these girls are taking any rest during their 5 minutes... wow!
Now, the mile came after the 2 mile race in this meet so for those that ran both, well, I'd say with the paces these races were seeing, tired might be an understatement. For someone that enjoys the sprint races more than much else, you probably don't hear me say this too much -- but the two mile races at this meet were, well, nothing less than amazing.. Exciting... riveting.... I don't even know how many laps it was because it didn't matter... both were fast and even for spectators, the heart rate had to be up there during these races!
Luke Meade (Sullivan East) was the favorite as he has a top 5 national mark in this race. Javan Winders (Henry County) was right there next to him in the top 25 nationally, so you know we were in for a good race. The top few boys started out the first couple of laps in a fairly tight pack as you would expect in this race. Then it started to string out a bit, but still everyone was in it by the mile, with Portland's John Payne keeping everyone alert by staying close in also. After the mile mark, Luke began to slowly pull ahead, but Javan still stayed nearby and changed leads with Luke a few times. John staying right there with them too. It really wasn't until the last few meters that you could tell Luke would win (9:27.18) and Javan second (9:31.71) and John third (9:45.97). Pretty tight race for an indoor mile.
Just before that, the girls took to the starting line. With two of the top 2 milers in the state in Morristown West's Makenzie Jones and Central Magnet's Taylor Cuneo, we knew this was going to be a fast and close race. Makenzie and Taylor took to the lead right from the gun. But it wasn't a huge lead at first, with Niamh Schumacher (King's Academy), Briana Koshy (Brentwood), Natlie Davis (Father Ryan), and Breanna Roy (David Crocket) staying tight and within touch to the top two. Once the race got past the first mile point, you can tell the talented duo of Makenzie and Taylor were going to pull in front and that they did. And they weren't running a slow pace by any means. Both were pushing hard and after that first mile, you knew these two girls were going to set some good marks. They didn't look tired. They didn't look slow. They were pushing themselves and each other. With two laps to go, it was difficult not to get focused on that race and what these girls were doing. In the end, Taylor clocked a 10:52.62 to get the #2 TN mark and the #8 national mark. And as exciting as those marks are, Makenzie literally sprinted the last lap to get the win and clock a 10:44.66 to top the TN ranking and get the Fourth best National mark!! How can you not love watching every single race and every single event when you know something like this can happen! I talked with Makenzie afterwards and she talked a bit about how much snow they've been getting and how the other day she went to the track to get in a workout but it was cover with a several inches of snow. She had to then put a different twist to the saying about looking for the open road... she looked for a road that wasn't covered in snow!! That fact in itself goes to prove the talent and level of discipline these athletes have to overcome to excel during the indoor season. Well, excel Makenzie did and I can't wait to see how the outdoor season goes for this young and very talented athlete!
On the very last day of February 2015, a big share of Track & Field athletes are going to be starting their outdoor season by saying what they hope to be saying again in late May -- I just competed at the TN State Championships! Live long and prosper... and hope to see you here next year!
See you on the track,
Coach Ted
TN State Indoor Championship Meet - 2015
The closer I got to Johnson City, the more I was reminded of how difficult it is to train for the indoor season. Snow, ice, damaged trees, and just down right cold. Just a bit more difficult to find the best time to get a run outdoors during the winter months. If it's not snowing, it's raining and if it's not raining, then it's cold and windy, and so on and so on... You certainly have to hand it to the athletes that made their way into qualifying for this first year State Indoor Championships Meet!
As I look over all the results from the meet, there definitely were some surprises and some races that ended up how I thought they would. Still, for those of us coming from the far west side of the state, no doubt the trip was worth it.