Lakewood – It is a common refrain for relay teams, and most of the time it sounds more hopeful than confident.
They say, if everybody can somehow run their best race and the baton handoffs are smooth, a state title is possible. Maybe even a state record. But putting together those perfect races when it really counts – at the state track and field championships – can be as much about luck as skill.
Call the D’Evelyn High School boys’ 3,200-meter relay team blessed and talented.
Seniors Derek Gilmore, Nate Sandberg and Kenny D’Evelyn and sophomore Kevin Williams ran personal-best times in their 800-meter splits and set a Class 4A state-meet record with a time of 7 minutes, 48.60 seconds Friday during the first day of the 5A and 4A boys and girls state championships at Jefferson County Stadium.
Twenty state finals were contested Friday, and four records were set. The remaining finals begin at 9:30 a.m. Saturday in the field and 10 a.m. on the track.
Though the D’Evelyn 3,200-relay team had been eyeing the state record all season, nobody expected to dust the old 4A mark by nearly four seconds.
“We were shooting for first place for sure, and we were looking at the record, but we went way faster than any of us anticipated,” Gilmore said.
Gilmore said his team shaved 14 seconds off their previous best performance in the race this season, and the addition of Williams brought everything together.
“We had been juggling the lineup all year. We wanted a strong group where we could plug guys in if we needed to, but when we put Kevin in our times dropped dramatically,” Gilmore said.
Widefield’s Nyeisha Wright had an equally dramatic performance. The defending state champion in the 4A girls’ triple jump, Wright broke the state record last week at regionals and then bettered herself on Friday with a jump of 41 feet, 3 1/2 inches, an inch longer than her previous record.
“During the summer I was struggling with an ankle injury and I didn’t know if I’d be able to get another state title. And once I got my right ankle braced, the left started bothering me. So when I jumped 39 (feet) in my first meet of the year, I thought I might be OK,” Wright said.
She was OK. As were Pueblo South’s Sam Pierson and Ralston Valley’s Kaitie Vanatta. Both set 4A state-meet records, Pierson in the pole vault and Vanatta in the 1,600.
Vanatta, a freshman, scorched the field with a time of 4:56.08, 5.5 seconds faster than the previous state mark and nearly 17 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Jen Webers of Conifer.
Pierson, meanwhile, just eked past the 4A pole vault mark by a quarter-inch. His vault of 15-8 1/2 was just higher than the one recorded by Liberty’s Dustin Sommerville in 2004.
In other races, Wasson’s Carl Arnold edged Adam Glenn of Arapahoe in the 5A boys’ 800 final by three-tenths of a second. Grand Junction junior Richard Medina breezed to the finish in the 3,200 final, nearly 10 seconds ahead of the competition.
Fruita Monument’s Sonni Russell came up an inch short of the 5A girls pole-vault record, but her mark of 5-9 was good enough for a state title.
