LCHS track and field

[April 08, 2022]  This is information written by Johnie Meisner about the 2022 Illinois Top Times Indoor Championships that were held in Bloomington IL March 25-26, 2022.

LCHS track and field athletes did amazing!

Johnie Meisner’s words…

Time to get going on this final track and field meet update of the indoor season--all four meets of it! It's MY post so bare with me because I have a lot of praise to heap on the kids before we get back to working hard in practice tomorrow. It's outdoor season so we'll be outdoors most of the time! But here goes my thoughts from the Illinois Top Times 2A Indoor Meet held at IWU on Saturday. This meet is considered by most as the unofficial high school state meet

Ten LCHS kids competed in eight events and brought home 13 medals. Might be some larger teams but none tougher!

I'm going to start with LCHS freshman Parker Campbell. No he didn't get a medal in the 60 hurdles and he didn't even quite run a PR. But he ran well and was one nervous young man. He's worked hard to become the hurdler he has become and will only get better. He finished 19th in :09.35. This kid has made some bigtime improvement since he first started hurdling.

Freshman Mallory Short is next. She was one of the better junior high sprinters in the state last year at WL-B. But we (her mom and I) told her that her ''best'' event was the 400. Tough sometimes to get short sprinters to buy into training for the 400. But Mallory went all out for the 400. She just missed getting a medal with her 9th place time of 1:02.98 (pr). She won her heat and even overcame a obvious shove by another runner rounding the final turn. May have cost her a half second or so. She missed the 8th place medal by .58.

Senior Reese McCuan didn't have a real great TJ day but still managed to sneak in for the 8th and final medal with a jump of 33'8''. It hasn't been the greatest weather to work on triple jump drills and it's the drills that make the tj'er.

The 4 x 400 relays are next up. They came in with the 10th fastest time. The boys team finished a good 6th. They won their heat by a couple seconds but five teams from the fastest heat ran faster. The foursome of Drake Rutledge (54.5), Ethan Bivin (53.9), Jude Toft (52.9) and Garrett Slack (51.9) ran 3:35.8, the fastest indoor mile for a LCHS team ever. Would have loved to see how they would have done in the fast heat!

The girls 4 x 400 set things up with a hard fought 3rd place time of 4:14.02 (a LCHS indoor record). The finished just one second out of 2nd and a second and half from willing. Mallory opened with a 1:03.9, Reese split 1:04.8, sophomore Alyssa Company went 1:04.5 and sophomore Becca Heitzig ripped off a 1:00.8 anchor. All are relay split PRs. I love it when the kids take the 4 x 400 serious.

Congratulations to the LCHS Track and Field athletes who participated in the 2022 Illinois Top Times Indoor Championships. Photo by Diane Van Dorn

Brenden Heitzig, a junior, had a nice double finishing with a PR 9:42.70 in the 3200 for fourth. He ran a nice consistent race except for two laps in the middle where he dropped a few seconds off his pace chart. He returned later to run 4:36.99 (his second best time ever) in the 1600 for 12th. As are all events in this meet, there are very few cheap spenders!

Now for three of the best finishes you could ask for in a track meet. In the 800, senior Garrett Slack ran people down to run a PR 1:59.12 for the win. He split 29--32--29--29 (1:01--58) for another LCHS indoor record. He's looking more and more like Chad White at the end of races!!!

With so many ''best'' it's tough to call anything the ''best'' but Becca ran two very good races before her blazing anchor leg on the 4 x 400. And to say her two open races were the conventional once would be a lie! She opened with the 3200. Her goal was to break 11 minutes. Ha, joke's on me. She locked up with a girl from Normal U-High in by far the most exciting race of the day. Becca led for about 10 laps, fell behind by as many as 10 seconds before putting on one of the biggest comebacks I've ever seen. She ran the final two laps in 1:14 and the final lap in :36 to just out lean the U-High girl by :07. Becca's winning time was 10:45.78 and a PR by 30 seconds. When I see the video and listen to the announcer it's even more amazing.

And then she returned to run the open 400. I’m sure no other runner ever ran both the 3200 and the 400 in a Top Times Meet before. Even when she told me her legs were ''dead'' (which she says they always are!) she again came flying down the homestretch to finish 3rd in 1:00.67, just a second off the 1st and 2nd place times of :59.51 and :59.77.

Now it's back to work and even harder. Because if what you did yesterday still looks good today, you haven't done much today. But it's going to take a few weeks before the efforts by these kids doesn't look good. Maybe this calls for me to use the word ''awesome'?”

[Johnie Meisner]