West Aurora places 3rd at its own sectional
West Aurora senior Leon Spears laid on his back on the trainer's table, breathing hard, a bag of ice under each hamstring muscle.
In the last 15 minutes at Saturday's Class 3A West Aurora boys track sectional Spears won the 200-meter dash and came back to run the Blackhawks' anchor slot in the 1,600 relay, which also qualified for next week's state meet.
"I've had only one other guy who's been able to do that - the 200 and come back for the 'four-by-four' - and he's standing in that doorway over there," said West Aurora coach Cortney Lamb, nodding at 2009 state champion Josh Zinzer standing at the very entrance to where Spears was recovering. In fact, Zinzer got the ice bags ready.
Lamb informed Spears just before the 200 he'd also be running the relay.
"I was shocked, but it all paid off in the end," said Spears, who ran 21.97 seconds in the sprint and, much earlier, also anchored a first-place 800 relay with Matt Souvannasing, Zach Woods and Jarick Phillips.
"I tried to get as many of my teammates down(state) as possible. It was what was best for the team, I knew my teammates were counting on me. I just had to suck it up and do the best I could."
West Aurora did about as well as it could in a third-place sectional finish behind Neuqua Valley and Waubonsie Valley.
There were some disappointments - the 400 relay didn't qualify for state, nor did Alex Chollet in discus, Souvannasing in long jump, George Malina in pole vault, Matt Muth in the 1,600, Steve Loran in the 3,200 or Patrick Shultz in the 300 hurdles - but good news outweighed the bad.
On the track the Blackhawks began by qualifying the 3,200 relay of Vontrell Hawkins, Muth, Zach Truckenbrod and Ryan Bartell, and later spun off Bartell to qualify in the 800-meter run. Bartell's time of 1:56.67 set a new school record, beating Dan Alvarado's 2003 mark.
"He's pretty cool," Bartell said on 2010's hottest day thus far. "I played basketball with him over the summer."
Aviance King wasn't overjoyed with his third-place high jump of 6-foot-5 but was happy to earn his third straight downstate appearance, while fellow senior Tony Ellison will make his first in shot put after going 54 feet, 7 inches.
"Going into this week, Coach Lamb told me every night before I go to bed to visualize in my head throwing 52-9 (qualifying standard)," Ellison said.
"To be honest, when he first told me I was iffy about it, but then when I got into it I was kind of feeling relaxed."
In the 300 hurdles, Schultz improved on his seed time but had to be satisfied with a non-qualifying third-place finish - and a leg of that 1,600 relay with Spears, Woods and Chris Gapinske.
Marcus Waller, however, came out of the 300 hurdles with his second state berth in as many years with a solid time of 39.68.
The junior had hurt his right hamstring around spring break. He's back to nearly 100 percent but still needs to tweak a couple things.
"Now it's just to get back in shape," Waller said. "The lungs, and I think a little bit in the stomach. I've been eating a lot."