Bethlehem 2/11 – Last chance to qualify for the post-season is the reason for this meet. (Those close to the cut offs for the Meet of Champs or indoor states.)
Let’s talk ‘good news’ first. Aditya Shah has been working hard at improving his hurdling and it’s starting to show. He’s been cutting down every meet. 9.96 to 9.55 for two previous tries and a 9.30 pre-lim followed by a 9.23 final here. Still short of the 9.14 MOC mark but nice progress heading into outdoor.
The sprinters have been putting in some time working on starts and Jaylen Foster has probably improved the most. Isaiah Marc and Jaylen came here seeded 1st and 3rd at 60M with both advancing into the final with the 3rd and 4th fastest times. Now for the ‘bad news’ – During the mile run (between 60 pre-lims and finals) kids came to me and said Jaylen ‘felt a tingle’ in his hamstring during the 60. Cooler heads (mine) prevailed as I decided to be safe and scratch him from the finals. Isaiah proceeded to finish in third with 7.14.
The 4 x 200 is still 1.1 seconds off the state standard and with only two more shots, we were up against the wall. We were pushed further up against that wall without Jaylen, our lead-off runner. Against my advice, they decided to scratch rather than use this to sharpen their hand-offs and zone management skills. We’ll have one more chance at the Meet of Champs on Saturday, that is if Foster’s OK.
Another bright spot was Chase Bethea. He always goes after it! Dead last going into the final curve of his 400 heat, he moved out to lane 4 and somehow managed catch the whole pack. Storming down the stretch, almost in lane 5, he snatched the win with an indoor PR of 53.47, 6th over-all. Probably worth a 52 in lane 1.