CHARLESTON – Thursday's opening day of the 124th IHSA Boys Track and Field Championship state meet at Eastern Illinois University's O'Brien Field saw three area runners attempt to advance to Saturday's finals in the Class 1A competition.
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Unfortunately, the runners – Trent Bertlesman of Bunker Hill and Aaron Gregory and Kaleb Ware of Marquette Catholic – failed to advance into Saturday's finals in their events.
The Minutemen's Bertlesman turned in a 16.22-second time in the 110 hurdles, while the Explorers' Gregory had a 11.17-second time in the 100 meters – missing out on reaching the final nine in the event by a hundredth of a second as Spring Valley Hall's Marshall Walk was the last runner in with a 11.16-second effort – and Kaleb Ware had a 54.69-second mark in the 400 meters in his heat.
“That's how it goes,” said Explorer coach Mike Brooks of Gregory just barely missing out on moving into Saturday's final in the event. “They were able to break it down to thousandths of a second to determine how it went, and Aaron just missed out.
“He ran the 10th-fastest time in the event and he's really improved for us the three years we've had him on the track team. I'm very proud of what he's done for us.”
Brooks was also happy for Ware, who was running track for the first time this season.
“It was exciting to see Kaleb get to state,” Brooks said. “He ran a full indoor season and ran for us in the outdoor season as well and got to the state meet both indoors and outdoors.”
Minutemen coach Craig Marshall was happy with Bertlesman's effort. “Trent did pretty well,” Marshall said. “His best time this year was a hand-timed 15.9 and then ran 15.65 in the (Litchfield) sectional; for him being up here for the first time as a sophomore, he did pretty well. The next couple of years, I'm really looking forward to.
“Looking at all the qualifiers, he was the top sophomore; everyone ahead of him were juniors and seniors.”
Bertlesman was one of seven athletes on both the Minutemen and Minutemaid track teams this year. “We're kind of like utility players here; anything I asked of them, they did,” Marshall said. “Trent long jumped and triple jumped, did high hurdles and intermediate hurdles; Trent's one of the hardest-working kids we've had the last couple of years and leads by example.
“I look forward to that the next couple of years.”
Competition resumes this morning with qualifying in the Class 2A meet, followed by Class 3A qualifying in the afternoon. The finals in all events begin at 10 a.m. Saturday.
