Parker Campbell and company
impressive at State
[June 02, 2025]
LCHS senior Parker Campbell was jaw-dropping impressive on
Saturday at the IHSA Class 2A Boys State Track and Field
Championships at Eastern Illinois University.
So were the four LCHS underclassmen who joined him at O’Brien Field
in Charleston.
Campbell ran the 110m hurdles in a lightning-fast time of 14.18.
Campbell, who at 6’4 has an incredibly athletic body, finished
second to Louis Yohannes of Triad, who had a time of 14.11. Both are
seniors.
Campbell’s new PR earned him a no. 8 ranking in Illinois. Yohannes
is ranked no. 6 in Illinois.
Owen Cyrulik and Colin Crombie, both sophomores and Pierce King and
Henry Stoltzenburg, both freshmen, also earned respect at the state
meet as they ran the 4x800m relay in 7:56.08. Their new PR earned
them a fourth place finish.
King led off the 4x800m relay running 2:00.26. Stoltzenburg ran the
second leg in 2:01.38. Crombie moved up five places with an
impressive 1:58.15 split. Cyrulik took it to the finish line with a
phenomenal 1:56.28 split.
As for this impressive group of underclassmen, Campbell grinned from
ear to ear when talking about them.
“They did really well,” said Campbell. “I mean, I heard a coach say
that Lincoln might have one of the best freshman-sophomore relay
teams in the country. I don’t remember what school the coach was
from, but these kids are that talented and they’re gonna keep coming
back year after year because they’re young. Going to state as a
bunch of underclassmen is a pretty huge accomplishment for those
kids.”
Campbell himself is highly impressive when he runs those hurdles. To
watch him run over each hurdle is truly a thing of beauty.
“I don’t think we’ll ever have another hurdler like Parker again,”
said coach Jenna Crombie. “I’ve gotten to see him these last few
years and just the way that he worked to get back to what you see
today is inspiring to the whole team. To me, in particular, is his
relationship with Coach Meisner. It is really very interesting to
watch. I mean it’s a very straightforward way of coaching and it
just could not click better with this kid. They get along perfectly
and Parker works so hard. They’re very goal-oriented minded and they
checkmark one thing off at a time and move on to the next goal.”
“I’ve seen Parker work back from his injuries his sophomore year and
just keep working and not only working on himself, but also leading
the team around him,” continued Crombie. “He is very singular-minded
in his training, but he is also such a good leader. He leads
everyone around him, not just by example, but he’s also helping
everyone. He’s got a sister, Addison, on the team that he’s very
kind to and he helps. And he helps coach everybody. He’s just a
great kid.”
And this great kid was outstanding on Saturday in Charleston. He
shattered any previous record he had and yes, even he was shocked.
“I was shocked and I was elated,” said Campbell. “I was so excited.
I mean, my freshman year even I didn’t think I’d ever be able to run
a time like that. I didn’t think I was fast enough. I set my mind on
the 300m hurdles and I just kind of kept training for those. Then I
got stronger and I realized that junior year the 100m hurdles were
in my sights but I never thought I’d run a 14.18. When I saw that
number on the board, I was like, out of my mind happy.”
“Oh yeah, your jaw dropped,” said Crombie, smiling at Campbell.
“What you did was insane for real.”
The work ethic that Campbell possesses is top-notch and it’s the
reason why he’s so successful. He said he started running the
hurdles in sixth grade. He was in seventh grade when Covid hit. It
was during Covid that he decided to hit the gym and get stronger.
This is a kid who was so disciplined and determined to get better
that he hit the weights at The Rec at 5:00 a.m. consistently. He
also knew he had to work on his technique and the challenging height
of the hurdles, if he was to improve.
“It took me quite a long time to get it right, actually,” said
Campbell. “It is a lot of training and I’d say probably thousands of
hours just spent on the track going over hurdles. I started the
hurdles in sixth grade. Seventh grade was Covid and then eighth
grade I started to get a little bit better. When freshman year came
around, the hurdles got taller. It was more hours of training.”
[to top of second column] |
Pierce King, Henry Stoltzenburg, Owen Cyrulik, Colin Crombie and
Parker Campbell at the 2025 IHSA Class 2A Boys State Track and Field
Championships. Photo courtesy of Jenna Crombie
Campbell even trained on hurdles that were taller than what he would
normally compete on.
As for his workout routine, Campbell said, “I made sure that I made
time for it and I found the easiest way for me to make time was just
to wake up early and go lift. Lifting really changed the whole game.
I got a lot stronger. I got a lot faster.”
“It’s interesting to me to watch him train because obviously he puts
in a lot of time with Coach Meisner,” said Crombie. “And it’s
beautiful when he runs but if he hits a hurdle, I mean, it is gonna
be like a car crash. That’s a big body to get moving so fast and
there’s not a lot of space between him and the hurdle.”
Incidentally, Campbell ran the 300m hurdles in the finals on
Saturday and he finished in eighth place with a time of 41.68,
earning another medal.
As a result of the fine accomplishments of the five Railsplitters on
Saturday, they earned an overall 15th place finish at the state meet
for Lincoln Community High School.
That is a phenomenal finish across the state of Illinois for just
five athletes from a small community.
While Campbell is heading to Grand Valley State University in the
fall, the four remaining underclassmen have a bright future ahead
too.
Coach Crombie has a son, Colin, who is part of that impressive
group.
“There were a lot of expectations on them,” said Crombie of Colin,
Cyrulik, Stoltzenburg and King. “And they exceeded those
expectations, which was pretty special. I thought they could do it.
I knew on paper they could do it. But to have them overcome the
nerves that they had and execute it, was phenomenal. It was so
great. I’m so happy for the kids. They are very talented. We started
figuring out early in the season they had the talent. We knew these
kids could do some great things and they really showed up on the day
of the finals. They struggled a little bit with nerves. They were
really nervous and almost did not qualify for the finals. They
finished 11th out of 12th in Prelims. But they qualified.”
Crombie also emphasized the talent on the rest of the track and
field teams at LCHS and she and her assistant coach, who happens to
be her sister Sarah Farris, are well aware of the incoming talent.
What these coaches and kids around the community are building is
special and just as Becca Heitzig left her mark at LCHS, so are this
year’s senior captains.
“Parker and Mallory Short are our senior captains,” said Crombie.
“We talked about what we wanted the season to be and we talked about
building a legacy. What is your legacy going to be? They were really
excited to kind of set the tone this season. We want everyone to
have a work ethic going forward. The legacy that Parker is leaving
is pretty big and Mallory as well.”
The work and dedication of the coaches is not to be overlooked
either. There’s so much more to track and field than competing.
There’s intense physical and mental preparation, strategy,
technique, and really the list goes on to include so much behind the
scenes work that coaches do and if they do it successfully, they end
up seeing their athletes on the podium earning a medal.
So congratulations to the Railsplitters and their coaches on a very
successful season and ending at STATE!
[Teena Lowery]
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