Winning gold in the 200-meter dash of Saturday’s finals at the Region III meet in Waco, Tim Grice became the first RHS freshman to qualify for the UIL State Track and Field meet since Jaquayln Crawford won gold as a part of the 4x200-relay team in 2015. Grice was also the first ninth-grader to make it to state in an individual event since 2013 when Dae Dae Robertson, who now coaches for the Blue-and-Gold, qualified in the 300-meter hurdles.
In addition to already being associated with some of Rockdale’s top athletes in recent memory, Grice also broke a school record the day before securing his trip to Austin, when he ran a 21.49 on Friday in the pre-lims. That time broke Virgil Clark’s time of 21.51 that he earned as an RHS student in 1986.
Grice will sprint next at the Class 3A UIL State Track and Field Meet on Thursday, May 12th, at Mike A. Meyers Stadium in Austin. He is slated to compete for gold at 7:30 p.m., that evening.
SATURDAY—Several other RHS student athletes competed in Saturday’s finals. Freshman T’Niyah Miles placed fourth in her regional debut with a distance of 34-11.75 in the shot put.
Rockdale’s sprint relay team made up of Grice, Tristan Galvan, Kobe Mitchell and Robert Owens placed third in the pre-lims on Friday with a time of 43.33 and went into Saturday’s finals with hopes to take back the second spot from district rival Caldwell. However, a missed handoff on the final leg of the relay led to Rockdale not finishing the race.
That same group of four re-united on the track a little more than an hour later for the 4x200-meter relay. The Blue-and-Gold placed seventh with a time of 1:32.12, unable to improve from their season best of 1:31.48 that they ran a day before in the pre-lims.
Yovanney Delgadillo competed in the mile on Saturday, placing ninth with a time of 4:50.04. Coming into regionals as an area meet silver medalist, Delgadillo was in the front of the pack with eventual winner Nathan Evans of Cameron for much of his first two laps but fell back and noticeably struggled to get through the rest of the race.
FRIDAY—Other competitors for RHS in Friday’s preliminary races were Robert Owens, who placed 12th in the 100-meter dash with a 11.31. Tiger sophomore Wyatt Windham made his first trip to regionals and also had a 12th place finish but in the high jump with a 5-10. Delgadillo placed 12th as well earlier that morning in the 3200 with a 10:57.59. Galvan ran alongside Grice in the 200-meter dash prelims, placing 15th with a time of 23.78.
This was the first regional meet for all seven Rockdale regional qualifiers. Mitchell was also the lone senior in Waco this past weekend.
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