Friday, May 29, 2009 11:00 PM CDT
Wave reaches state track finals in 4 events
By BRIAN NIELSEN, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON -- No one had to tell Cameron James where he stood with one attempt left in Friday’s discus preliminaries.
“My first throw was terrible, the second one was average and the last one it could have been my last throw ever,” the Mattoon senior said. “I relaxed and said ‘do I want to go home or do I want to come back tomorrow?’ ”
What he did was spoil any thoughts of all-night parties after Mattoon’s Friday night graduation with an appointment in today’s finals in the IHSA boys’ state track finals to start at 10 a.m. today at Eastern Illlinois’ O’Brien Stadium.
“Oh well,” James said with a smile. “That’s OK with me.”
By unleashing a personal best pressure throw of 153 feet, 5 inches, James found the most dramatic way to join high jumper Brandon Phillips, 800 runner Treye Williams and the 4x800-meter relay team as Green Wave participants in today’s Class 2A finals.
Mattoon long jumper David Glasener had to settle for Friday’s participation failing to advance through the prelims.
The Green Wave is one of 21 teams advancing in four or more events.
The sophomore Williams is to compete in two races today after getting his 4x800 relay team off to a good start toward qualifying with the eighth best time of 8 minutes, 7.53 seconds in the 12-team 4x800 finals and then also made it with his 1:59.78 good for 10th overall in the 800 run.
While Williams was running a 1:59 leadoff leg putting the Green Wave in the lead of the 4x800, the second runner Joe Calio was throwing up near the track.
“Three times,” Calio said answering Blake Flood’s question of the dirty details.
“You haven’t done that since eighth grade,” Flood said.
If this had anything to do with results, Mattoon coaches might just induce Calio’s vomiting today.
The sophomore clipped four seconds off his previous best split running his 800 in 2:00.
“They had a fast handoff and got ahead,” Calio said. “I just tried to stay up with them.”
Sycamore moved ahead at the start of the second leg, Belvidere North’s Cody Laseman eventually went ahead on that leg but Calio kept the Wave in good position handing off third to Flood.
“A kid cut off Joe at the end so that kind of made me mad,” Flood said. “I ran hard my first lap so this time I didn’t have a kick left.”
But Flood still had a personal best 2:04 split keeping Mattoon in third that anchor runner Dakota McDonald maintained with his own 2:04.
“The whole time I was running I kept telling myself it could be my last race,” McDonald said. “I didn’t think I’d be as nervous as I was or feel the pressure but it was still fun. This was what I was trying for my whole high school career.”
The Wave foursome gets to run again today.
“They showed up,” Mattoon assistant coach James Hood said. “They knew what they had to do and did it. We changed the order and we talked to them about why. We wanted to get off to a good start and we did. Then we kind of found ourselves running alone and running against the clock and we did a good job of running against the clock.”
In addition to running against 11 other teams in today’s finals, the 4x800 team has in mind Mattoon’s school record of 8:04.
“We’ll break the school record,” Williams said.
That depends on the sophomore recovering after he was painfully stretching some troublesome hamstrings after his 800 run.
Williams also had to wait to see that he made it to the 12-runner 800 finals by placing eighth in the faster of the two heats led by Galesburg’s Luke Junk with a time of 1:57.1.
Standing four with his 55-second first lap, Williams faded a bit but held on enough while passed by three runners in the second 400.
“I’m not in good enough condition,” the Mattoon sophomore said.
Phillip had a day of mixed emotions advancing in the high jump but not in the 110 high hurdles where he finished fifth in his heat and 12th overall in an event that has nine lanes for the finals. His time was 15.30 seconds after running a 15.03 in last week’s Bloomington Sectional and a 14.55 earlier this season.
This was the first time all season he had been beaten in the 110 highs.
“I would have loved to have made it in the hurdles,” the Mattoon senior said. “I love the hurdles a lot. It’s just you stumble on one hurdle in the state and you’re done. I stumbled over one hurdle.”
That costly stumble came after good start forged Phillips into the early led.
He had no such flaws in the high jump clearing his first attempts at both 6-0 and 6-2, which was the stopping point in the prelims.
A year ago in the old two-class system Phillips made 6-4 in the prelims and missed at 6-5 which turned out to be the cutoff point in Class AA.
He was one of eight 2A jumpers to clear 6-2 Friday while four others made the finals by going 6-1.
They start anew today with Phillips getting his chance to complete an outstanding career with a state medal.
“Making it to the finals in Illinois is pretty big,” Phillips said. “It’s one of the three best states for track and field. I’m looking to win or at least get in the top three.”
Phillips cleared 6-6 at last week’s sectional, which was the second best mark in 2A.
He has higher goals, literally, today.
“Truthfully, 6-10 or 6-11,” Phillips said. “If I don’t do how I want to do, I won’t make any excuses. It’s all on me.”
Discus distances from Friday carry over into today’s finals leaving James ranked sixth among 12 finalists led by East Peoria’s Chris Thornton with a 165-1.
Bettering the personal best 149-3 for second place last week in the Bloomington Sectional to get this state chance, James continued his late-season peak.
This time the senior waited until his final attempt to assure himself of a finals berth.
“I about had a heart attack,” Mattoon coach Nat Zunkel said. “He’s a tough kid and came through when he needed to.”
Of earlier throws, including a 141-1 that as it turned out would have gotten James into the finals, Zunkel said: “He didn’t do anything wrong. His form has been getting better and better.”
One week after achieving Class 2A’s automatic qualifying distance of 21-8 in the long jump, Glasener went 19-10.5 in the prelims where a 20-8.5 was needed for one of the 12 finals berths.
“It’s a bad day but I made it here,” the Wave senior said. “I could have had a bad day at sectionals. I’m just glad I got to be here after being injured last year.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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