CHANUTE — It only took until the waning days of the regular season, but Iola High’s track team finally was able to compete in something other than miserable weather Friday.
“It was nice to see such beautiful weather emerge,” IHS head coach Dana Daugharthy said, as the Mustang track teams ventured to Chanute for the Thad Clements Invitational.
But while the Mustang runners were able to shine, the lack of practice time likely hampered Iola’s field event competitors.
“Field events are more technical,” Daugharthy said. “They require fine tuning. On the track, however, this allowed us to have really fresh legs, which led to some great performances.”
The Mustang runners led the IHS boys to a third-place overall finish against many of the same schools they’ll face in two weeks at the Class 4A Regional Meet.
“The meet was a great preview of what the majority of our regional will look like,” Daugharthy said.
Iola has reason for optimism between now and then, as evidenced by Friday’s performances.
Leading the charge was senior Brett Willis, who set a personal record in winning the 100-meter dash in 11.10 seconds.
That figure was important, Daugharthy noted, because Willis had been hand-timed at 11.11 seconds once before, but never with automatic timing.
“Running faster than 11.11 was kind of something Brett was shooting for,” Daugharthy explained. ‘That was a lot of technical language to basically say that Brett ran a very fast 100.”
Willis was held out of a chance to win gold in the 200 meters as well, which Daugharthy admitted may not have been his wisest decision.
“We wanted to put the best relays we could to see what we could run,” he explained. But the strategy went awry when the 4×100- and 4×400-meter relay teams had other absences.
Meanwhile, Jesse Taylor seems to have rebounded nicely from nagging injuries that have hampered his running. He topped the field in Friday’s 3200-meter run.
“He ran close to his season best in the 3200 with really no one pushing him,” Daugharthy said. “He looked smooth. This was a good sign because he has a good shot at winning the 3200 at league and then qualifying for state the next week. We are just praying that he remains healthy.”
Kaster Trabuc thrived in taking third in the 1600 and and second in the 3200, with personal-best times in both, plus he ran a blistering leg in the 4×800-meter relay.
“What he did was pretty remarkable,” Daugharthy said. “His 1600 performance was probably the best news of the night because that time will allow him to really push for a state spot. Kaster has really demonstrated a lot of fight and toughness this year, and I think he is going to be a pivotal player for our distance crew next week in the league meet.”