Transcript
with us on Coach's Corner, KWB. G got a chance to put a wrap on Madrid Boys' track season, really thought had a strong end to the season. Steve Perkins joining us. And Steve, I know when we talked, it was probably, we were just getting into May. And I know injuries were starting to pile up a little bit. And I know you were a little bit worried just about, OK, once we get these kids back healthy, then we don't have a ton of time before it's state qualifying meet and then actually state meet. But I really thought you guys put together a strong end to the season. You ended up with multiple relays down at state. You had individuals down there as well. I thought, considering where we were at the beginning of May to where we ended up, I thought this was a good season, Coach. Where are you thinking? Oh, yeah, we were a great, great year as far as how we finished up. And obviously, we had a lot of kids through some of the injuries that we had. Some real quality veteran runners and other younger kids or inexperienced kids had to step up for football's role. And they really did a nice job. And that bodes well for the future. And so maybe they got put into position. Maybe they weren't quite ready for it right away. But they got better, even progressed. But we ended up qualifying eight events to the state track meet. And we thought all of those eight events were quality. And they ran and threw well down to state track and competed very well. Had a couple other things that were darn close to getting in and ran really well to stay qualifying me. So that's one of the state qualifying me. We thought we had a really good shot at winning it. But we knew we had to run well and be well, throw well, jump well. And our kids really responded. And we ran down at Colfax, state qualifying meet. And really, really nice complex. And we'd never been there before. And I know our kids were excited about that. Really neat facility. We were all set up. And they performed well that night. Our kids were excited. Our girls ended up winning the state qualifying meet, too. So it's nice to always have your boys and girls both winning the meet and those district meets on the same night. And it was really good for our school, really good for our programs. And we're really, really happy with how things went. So yeah, it's a good end of the season. State track meet, great weather down there. We always talk to our kids about when we go down to state track meet, trying to outdo your seed. Or you come in seeded-wise. I don't know if that makes sense or not. But if you come in seeded 20, can you beat that seed? Can you finish at a higher spot? And we thought we competed very well to being at our best or better than our best in all of our events that we took down there. So we felt really good about that as well. And it was just a fun weekend all in all. So we're really, really happy with how the season ended. And very pleased with that. Well, you talk about telling your kids, can you do better than your seeds? I'll take it one step further. I always kind of look at season best. I look to see how many times was there a matter of relay? Was there a matter of kid that had a season best? And coach, they're dotted all over the place. 4x8, the shuttle hurdle, and the prelims, I know ran a 102-43. I know your 4x1 team too puts up a 43-47. Caleb had a fantastic 800-meter run. I mean, there's so many positives that came out of the state meet. I kind of feel like I do disservice if I try to talk about just each one, because I don't want to miss anybody. But man, there was a ton of season best that came out too. Yeah, absolutely. So the 4x8 came down. I think we were about a second faster than what we had been all year. Those four ran together quite a bit all year long. Had a few change-ups when we were trying to run the 2-mile. And we would switch out. I know Kevin and Kevin Peele, the senior, he'd run the 2-mile sometimes. Then he also run the 4x8. So we ran the 4x8. State Qualifying Meet got in. State Qualifying Meet was a heck of an effort, a heck of a race. We were in a race with, I believe, the Andy Christian Academy. And it came down to the wire. And Kevin Peele was on the anchor. The other three guys, Henry Chris and Caleb, they all did a heck of a job. And put us in position to have a chance to win that race. And Andy Christian Academy had a nice anchor leg. And as we did with Kevin, it went down. They were neck and neck on the home stretch. Kevin was taking a lead and their kid came back. Kevin took the lead and their kid came back. And Kevin kind of fell. I told him it was one of those memorable moments and memorable races. And he just gave everything he had. And he fell almost right at the finish line. And ended up picking up at the baton and crossing the finish line. So it cost us a couple of seconds. But it was nothing short of recap, as far as effort. He even gave everything he had. And so that was the State Qualifying Meet. So that race, we ended up getting second. But we got in at a lot of our time. So we ran one second faster at State than we did at State Qualifying Meet. But great effort with all those kids. They did a great job all year long. That was our goal. We tried to get in the 820s and made 820s quite possibly. We did quite get there for further reaching that goal. But we did have our season's best, which is all I can ask of any of those kids. Shuttle for a relay in all year. We kept getting better. We had some guys get banged up early on. As we got back into things later on, in about midpoint of the year, we had some other kids kind of step into the shuttle hurled. We had Will Atkinson and Kenny Grimm both had some hamstrings reigned early on. And we had to have some other kids kind of step up and get in there and get them rolling. And as Will and Tuna came back and got in shape, and Hamstrings got to feeling better, and worked them back into the shuttle with Chase Berkins and Jake Sawyer. And those kids started popping out about conference. I think we ran, well, 103. We got second ACG conference. And then just kept getting better and better and better as the year went on. We thought we had a shot, maybe, to get right at in the finals of the shuttle down at State. And we had ran 1029 before that previous, and they ran 102.43, which then it could have ran much better than that. They ran really, really well. Competed against a good Oakland Riverside team in our heat. And they had their anchor there, Jackson Gordon, who was a heck of a high hurler that anchored them to the victory of that heat. But we end up just getting tense as far as overall. And so we just missed qualifying for the finals. But we were really happy with our kids' effort. And those kids didn't go away disappointed at all, and they shouldn't, because they performed really well there and all year long. Our four by two, yeah, they ran real well, too. They were right at their best that they've had all season. They ended up getting ninth place. That group of boys, there's three seniors in there with Kenneth Grimm. We had another young man that had been in those relays for the last, well, previous three years, and Jacob Farrell, who had a hamstring injury as well this year, just a side note on Jacob. It felt really bad for everybody on our team, all the kids, everybody felt real bad for me. Worked so hard, he's had three great years, and this year he really only ran about four track meets. I think it was maybe five, because of his injury. And he tried coming back at the conference meet, and he was in the open 100, and the heat with a, oh gosh, it was a really good 100 heat, but that Ethan King from Pleasantville was in there, and doggie kid from Van Meteor, I could go down the list. And Jacob was running really well, he was right at the lead with Ethan King, and the doggie kid at about 60 meters, and he pulled up, and hurt his hamstring again, and he was done for the year, so it was really sad to see him go down, and for Jacob, I just want to say that it was kind of a testament to who he is or the person, because he, after that point, he really could have cashed in, and they said my feed was over, and he took it the other way, and took the approach of being a leader, almost a speed and coach, and really helped out at practices, at the meets, you know, and he's got a laugh about it, because we started calling him Coach Farrell at that point in time, and he just sort of, he did a fantastic job being around the kids, and helping them out, and I know the kids liked it, and appreciated it, and as we did at the coaching staff, so we were really indebted to Jacob for all of his efforts, his attitudes, and everything, and it was just really a bummer, because he got in there at the, you know, only ran the 4x2 and the 4x1 one-time, and they're both more seasons best at the time, and it was unfortunate that we couldn't see and run down there one more time, but Kenny Grim came in, and we kind of pulled Kenny out of the highs in the four and a hurdles, and put him into the 4x2 and the 4x1, and he did a fantastic job there, and filling in, and really did really well. We ended up running 131.5, and got 9th in the 4x2, and then the 4x1 with those guys, Kenny Kledenoff, and Logan Belke, and Jake Sawyer, and then Tyler Somenthal-Bankeren, they ran, I think it was 44.16, the prelims, and then we really got them excited, and they got excited about possibility of going after our school record, which was 43.45, and they ran 43.47 in the finals on Saturday afternoon, and ran really, really well. Exchanges were well executed, and they got out, they were intense with it, and it was really a good way to end the day, track me, those kids were pumped up, and we were awfully excited for all of them, and they did a really heck of a job,
and it was a good way to enter me. We also had the Caleb Burbridge in the open eight, he ran his best, not only season's best, but his career best in the open, and ran a 201.6, I think it was, and competed really well. Caleb did a nice job of just giving everything he's got when he competes and runs. We're really pleased with his efforts down there, and as well as with four by eight efforts that he's given all year. He kind of had an injury, something kind of, he had an injury early in the year, with his shin kind of coming off across country, similar type of thing that was bothering him earlier in the year, and we had to work on getting him healthy, and getting him confident, and we just kind of built him up throughout the whole year, and Caleb kept coming along and working hard, and had to be some trainers in different ways, to kind of help him out for his shin, and eventually the season got rolling, he kept getting better and better shaped, so he ended up, he tracked me with two events down there, competing in the four by eight and eight hundred, so we're really excited to see what Caleb could do in the future, he's got a bright future, and we'll try to see what he can do for us next year, and also in the fall here, it's cross country season as well, so we've got a lot of upsides with the things he can do, so we're excited for Caleb, and then what else we have, we had- Jevon Severson. Yeah, Jevon Severson, the guy from the shop put, Jevon went down, what a competition in both of them, he ended up throwing, I think it was 50 foot 10, I think something like that, the shop put, I think it was, ended up getting fifth, and then in the disc, he ended up getting eighth, with one 56 eight, and demand that disc competition was crazy, it was, man, you talk about competitive, I think Jevon, I think it was his first throw, he threw one 56 eight, and I think at the time he was sitting second, and then I think even before, where he was right around in there, and the competition kept going, I mean, one 56 eight you throw, and you're getting eighth place, it's a crazy competition for me, thinking all the years that we've had kids down there throwing the disc, and we're really, really happy with Jevon's progress, and the shot and disc, he's a competitor, works extremely hard as well, he's a great leader for us, and the shot and disc area, we're in the field event, and he really did a nice job, he had a good series there in the finals, his last two throws, they didn't beat his, best overall throw, but you just tell him he's getting better, and feeling more and more comfortable as you get down in that situation, down in that state track, so we're looking forward to seeing what he could do these next two years, and I know Jevon's also excited about it as well, it's both in this, and carrying that over into the shot and disc, and those competitions, and we'll see what happens in the future, so he had a heck of a state track beat, placing in both of those events as well, so, and we did have Tyler Sonnenfeld ran real well, and the 200-meter dash, you know, the 22-61 he ran, I think he finished somewhere right at 10th, I think overall, which Tyler's been a steady presence for us on the 200-meter dash for the last couple of years, and it's kind of crazy to think about, you run 22-61 and you can't make the finals, this shows just how good and how fast people have gotten here over the last four or five years, the times and the things that people are running, and we're really pleased with Tyler, with how he competed all year long, you know, he was a real big presence for us all year long, as far as he was healthy for us, showed up, worked hard, and competed really hard and never retracted me, and really pleased with him as a senior, you know, we'll miss those guys next year, I think we had, we had right at nine, nine seniors, I think it was this year, and all nine of them were quality kids that kind of set the present and what our culture needs to look like at practice, off-season work, and all the things included, so we'll be missed, we really like our juniors coming back next year as well, but you know, obviously that's often those seniors, really pleased with and proud of what they've done and the people that they are, so. Really phenomenal for them, that is for sure. Steve, thank you so much for all the results, we always appreciate all the coaches' corner time with you as well, it was a fun season to watch, I know, frustrating at times with some of the injuries that were there, but man, did you have some kids that really stepped into some new roles, and that was a ton of fun to watch too, and just thank you for a really enjoyable spring, and we'll look forward to talking Madra Track with you again coming up next year. Okay, thank you so much for having me on. You bet, Steve Perkins again joining us, Madra Boyce Track here on Coaches Corner.
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