CHANUTE — Rich Strike should be proud.
That is, if horses have those sorts of emotions.
Much like the longshot thoroughbred that won the Kentucky Derby earlier this month, Iola High’s Eli Adams wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence as he toed the starting line for Friday’s Class 4A Regional 800-meter run.
The IHS junior has been strong all season, but he also knew he was up against some brutal competition.
“I had zero confidence in winning,” Adams admitted.
See, he was ranked fourth among the competitors there, with a season-best time of 2 minutes, 9 seconds. And the other runners had clocked numbers significantly better than that.
Even worse, another runner had clocked a 2:06 leg in the 4×800-meter relay about an hour earlier, further dampening Adams’s enthusiasm.
“I went in thinking I’d be fifth,” he said, and thus not qualifying for this week’s state track meet in Wichita, which takes the top four finishers in each regional competition.
Sure enough, Adams ran much of the first lap of the two-lap race in fifth, but within a stride of the lead pack.
“They started to break away, and I knew I had to stay with them,” he said.
As the race wore on, the pack of five had dwindled to four, with Adams keeping with the lead group, but also still the hind leg.
Things were about to change in a big hurry.
As he has done repeatedly through his high school career as a distance runner, Adams kicked things into a higher gear as the runners exited the final turn. First, he plucked off Paola’s Tanner Petillo, galloped past Chanute’s Eliott Stephenson and finally caught up to race leader Alex Meister of Labette County with 50 meters to go.
The duo were neck and neck down the stretch, with Adams crossing the finish line a hair’s width in front of Meister for gold.
The final numbers: Adams won with a blistering 2:04.96 mark, one-tenth of a second in front of Meister.
“I don’t know how I caught them,” Adams said. “I just sort of have that extra energy stored up for the finish. I don’t know how. It just comes out.”
A fitting finish for a Mustang.
THE ADAMS thriller highlighted Iola’s day at the regional meet, hosted by Chanute High School, with a number of other IHS athletes booking their tickets to state.
Senior teammate Brett Willis will be in Wichita Friday and Saturday to compete in three events. He took silver in both the 100- and 200-meter dash, and third in the long jump.
