EDWARDSVILLE – The ninth annual Friday Night Lights family track and field meet at the Winston Brown Track and Field Complex at Edwardsville High School, came off without a hitch on Friday night, with children and their families being introduced to the sport of track and field through various events held during the evening.

Originally set as a two-part event, this year’s meet was reduced to only one day after the original two dates set for this year’s meet, June 14 and 21, were postponed because of rain and storms that moved through the St. Louis area. And because of some rain that moved through shortly before the meet started, the entire field events, along with the 4x25 meter family relay race, were canceled, reducing the meet to a 40-yard dash, the 100 and 400-meter runs, and the mile run.

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The turnout was still good, and everyone who participated enjoyed the experience very much.

“Yeah, not bad,” said Tigers boys track coach Chad Lakatos, who’s organized the meet since its inception in 2011. “I mean, I felt like there’s a lot of kids and parents that look forward to it every year, and I hated that the last two weeks got canceled, so I wanted to try to do a makeup date, and we almost got pushed away; we got some storms to come through. So we canceled the field events for today, and just wanted to be safe for the kiddos. But yeah, a decent turnout tonight.”

The meaning behind the Friday Night Lights meet is very simple: Introduce kids and their families to the sport in a family-friendly atmosphere, where the parents and kids alike have a great time.

“It’s just an idea to gather the family together to have an event to create memories for those families,” Lakatos said. “And from the young ones to the old ones; we don’t have very many older kids here today, mostly from the, I’d say, the two- to eight-year-old range, but it’s still a pretty good turnout. And again, the idea is just to get them exposed to the sport of track and field, and to have a good time, and a good experience.”

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The participants indeed enjoyed themselves very much, and George Patrylak, the Tigers’ cross-country and distance running coach, added to the fun as well.

“Most definitely,” Lakatos said. “Coach Patrylak brought out the bubble machine, and I think a lot of the kiddos were trying to chase the bubbles, but we had a good evening and a nice event for the families.”

The races were divided into various heats, and in the 40-yard dash, the winners were Caiden James, McKenna Comerford, Will Dust, Henry Senaldi, Eli Evans and Ian Trauernicht. In the 100-meter dash, the winners were Comerford, Gage and Eli Evans, and Trauernicht, while in the 400-meter run, Addison Comerford, Eli Evans and James Senaldi came out on top, while there was only one heat in the mile run, and taking first place was Gus Range.

Next year marks the tenth edition of the popular meet, and Lakatos is hopeful that the families will continue to come out to the event with the help of social media and other avenues.

“Hopefully, we can continue to have similar families coming out,” Lakatos said, “and supporting our program, and continuing to promote it. It’s one of those things where if you’re involved in the sport of track and field, you probably are more aware. There’s a lot of parents that aren’t. Baseball’s going on, so that pulls away; I know the (Southwestern Illinois Baseball League) tournament’s tonight. So hopefully, next year, we won’t get rained out, and we can have those meets on the dates that we set aside – I don’t know those off the top of my head. But hopefully, with the promotion and social media, we can have a good turnout for the tenth annual.”

Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.

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