Strong winds at the regional meet in Hewitt continue to wreak havoc for the Tiger sprint relay team. Because they clocked aslower time due to wind at the regional meet, the RHS sprint relay team of Cam’Ron Valdez, Will Storey, Qua’Shawn Crawford and Kesean Raven will run in lane nine at the Class 3A State Track and Field Championship in Austin.
At Panther Stadium in April, the team had the seventh fastest time of nine schools competing and finished their race with a time of 43.18, fourth-tenths of a second slower than their prelim time of 42.78. Coach Lewis Edmonson said every team ran slower in the finals because of the wind.
When lane assignments were doled out last week, RHS drew the inconvenient lane nine. Although Edmonson’s sprinters were worried about the assignment at first, social media helped the team shrug off their concerns.
“We started practicing this week and we felt a little hiccup because of the lane assignment. I think the guys were kind of set back knowing that
they had to run in a bad lane,” Edmon-son said. “But I was tweeting about it on Tuesday and a friend replied and told me about Marshall High School getting second at the 2013 State meet from lane nine.
“I immediately tagged all of our guys in that tweet and our mentality has changed completely. Cam’Ron likes the short curves and I think if Qua’Shawn does a good if Qua’Shawn does a good job of getting around that last curve, we should do well.”
“I couldn’t be more proud of...this group and what they’ve accomplished this year and
” how hard they work day in and day out.
– Coach Lewis Edmonson
The Tigers go into the race facing Crockett, who has out run RHS by seconds at the area and regional meets. They also face tough competition from Region II schools Jefferson, Dallas Madison and Dallas Life Oak Cliff. Jefferson won the Region II meet in Whitehouse with a time of 42.01. Madison and Life Oak ran a 42.25 and 42.31.
Other schools RHS will face will be Slaton and Wall from Region I, who will go into the state meet with a 43.03 and 43.25. From Region IV, Goliad will go in with a 42.77 and Mathis will run next to Rockdale in lane eight with a time of 43.30.
“The region two schools will be highly competitive. All three of their schools are coming into state with the top three times,” Edmonson said. “I don’t know a whole lot about the other schools besides their times. But we just have to run our race. I’m really positive going into the state meet.”
This will also be the final high school track meet for Storey.
“One of the things I keep doing is reminding Will that this is his final high school track meet,” Edmonson said. “And he’s really bringing it. I couldn’t be more proud of him or this group and what they’ve accomplished this year and how hard they work day in and day out.”
The sprint relay is scheduled to run at 5:30 p.m., Friday, at the Mike A. Meyers Stadium in Austin.
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