Juniors to state (05/23/08)

INDIANAPOLIS - With just one jump remaining, Dexter Shreve was still short of a state berth. After Brandon Reynard crossed the finish line in the 300-meter hurdles, he was sure he had fallen short.

But both will be competing in the state finals.

The pair of Jay County High School juniors earned state berths at Thursday's regional meet at North Central - Reynard by finishing third in the 300 hurdles and Shreve by surpassing the state-qualifying standard in the long jump.

"I'm just pretty excited about taking a couple boys down (to state)," said JCHS coach Greg Garringer, whose team was 10th out of 25 with 16.5 points. "One is OK, but taking two is awesome."

Especially because the berths were anything but guaranteed.

In fact, Reynard, who was seeded No. 1 in the 300 hurdles, was sure he had missed out. He crossed the finish-line in an incredibly close three-way battle for second and third places - the top three athletes in each event as well as those who achieve the state standard advance to the state finals - as three athletes crossed the line in the span of less than a tenth of a second.

He thought Allen Richardson of Cathedral had out-leaned him at the finish line, and his unofficial time was well short of the automatic state qualifying mark.

"It was really close, but I thought he might have leaned a little bit more than what I did," said Reynard, who was emotionally crushed and left in tears as the race was reviewed. "It was so close."

But when the official results were announced, it was Richardson who sat in fourth place. Reynard was next in third, giving him a state berth, just one hundredth ahead of the Cathedral junior in 39.37 seconds.

I feel "a lot better," said Reynard after getting the good news. "I really thought he got me.

"It was a big relief, a big relief. Like the paper said, I was seeded one going in here. I have a bunch of family here, a lot of pressure."

The field was tightly packed through the first several hurdles, but Reynard began to make his move around the turn.

While Brandon Newbern of Ben Davis ran away with the win in 38.21, Reynard, Richardson and Joshua Harper of Lawrence North battled it out for second place.

Harper took the runner-up slot just seven hundredths of a second ahead of Reynard.

"I started off faster than any race I ever have," said Reynard. "And by doing that it messed my steps up a little bit and my hurdles weren't the greatest. I made up a lot of it in the turn, and in the straight away it was real close all the way down."

Reynard had never run the hurdles before last season, when he won the sectional. He defended his title at Muncie Central this year, and will now try for a state medal.

"He's amazing," said Garringer. "He's a fighter. He hates to lose. If he does, it just crushes him."

Shreve had an outstanding day in the long jump as each of his first three attempts cleared the 21-foot mark to qualify him for the finals, giving him another three tries. But in a stacked field - two competitors cleared 23 feet - he needed to get the state standard to move on.

His fourth jump came in under the 21-foot mark - 20 feet, 7¼ inches - and he scratched on the fifth. That left him with one try to make the 21-foot, 8½-inch automatic qualifying standard, which was 5½ inches further than any of his first five tries.

Shreve made his final jump count, soaring 21 feet, 10 ¼ inches to earn a trip to Bloomington.

"I was real nervous," said Shreve. "I had missed my mark and wasn't even jumping from the board. The second-to-last jump I jumped past the board. Finally I just hit it. The jump just felt good."

The jump was good enough to place Shreve sixth as each of the top eight athletes at North Central reached the state standard. He was just one-quarter inch away from the school record set by Jason Hammond in 1996.

"Coming in today, looking at the seeds and everything, we figured that would be the last event he would make it in. And he's a quarter-inch from getting the school record in that," said Garringer. "He just got himself focused and stayed consistent."

Shreve also had opportunities for state berths in both high jump, where he was seeded in a three-way tie for third, and the 400 dash, where he was the No. 5 seed.

In the high jump he cleared the bar on his second attempt at six feet, the same height that won him the sectional championship a week earlier, but missed on all three attempts at 6 feet, 2 inches. He tied for seventh with Josh Gambles of North Central.

Shreve got off to a solid start in the 400 dash and picked up the pace on the back stretch. He was in the mix for second place coming down the home stretch, but ran out of gas and stumbled across the finish line. He was fifth in 50.96 seconds - fourth tenths behind third-place Eric Nicholas of North Central.

In addition to his third-place effort in the 300 hurdles, Reynard came all the way from the No. 15 seed to finish seventh in the 110 hurdles. He ran more than 1.5 seconds faster than at the sectional meet, finishing in 15.62.

Two other Patriots competed in individual events, with Lance Franklin taking 11th in the discus at 130 feet, 4 inches. He finished ahead of all three fellow competitors from the Muncie Central sectional after finishing third in the event last week.

Patrick Williams was 16th in the 100 dash in 12.01.

Reynard, Franklin, Williams and Garrett Krieg were 12th in the 4x100 relay in 45.56, and Reynard, Shreve, Patrick Johnson and Colton Sibery took 13th in the 4x400 relay at 3:46.15.

"The other guys had a good day too," said Garringer. "We ran a decent 4x100, Franklin through 130-plus again and beat all the guys in the sectional here today. I'm really happy with the way they guys performed today. We've got good kids."

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