WOW, er Double WOW!

And by WOW, I also mean Win Over Webster.

What an exciting pair of dual meets, with the boys pulling out a 71-70 win, and the girls meet also decided on the last event of the day, which happens to be the 4x800m relay.

The boys got off to a mixed start, with a 9-0 (track dual meets are scored: 5 points for 1st, 3 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd, in individual events, and just 5 points for the winning relay team) surprise in the High Hurdles, followed by a 1-8 surprise, only claiming 3rd in the 400.

The 1600 was up next and Thomas had both Jared and Tim running. Nobody wanted to push things early, so AJ, Jared and Tim came through the 800 in 2:25, with Adrian close behind, but the 3rd lap turned it into a 3-man race, and the final lap became a 400m race, with Tim quickly falling behind as AJ took off, with Jared chasing. AJ clocked a 61 for the last lap, to win by a safe margin.

The girls 1500 saw Val and Amanda running side-by-side, with Annelise tucked in behind and three Thomas girls following. After opening with an 80, they slowed to 87 on the second lap, but started pressing the pace a bit late the 3rd lap to come thru in 83. From there it became a kicker's race and Val took off with Amanda and Annelise chasing, and only one Thomas girl staying close. Unfortunately, that one Thomas girl passed Annelise on the final straight and then edged a surprised Amanda at the wire. The girls ran 54, 57 and 58 for the last 300m.

The boys swept the 100 and reports came in showing 3 points in the Long Jump and 6 in the Discus, for a 33-21 lead. In the 400 Hurdles, Eric got off to a great start and had a nice lead at the 250m, when Jared, who was 2nd in the Steeplechase at the State Championships last spring, went to work. Jared hit the second-to-last hurdle, giving Eric another lead, but Jared battled back and, in a judges decision, edged Eric at the wire. Juan grabbed 3rd for another point.

In the 800, Thomas had Tim and a part-time runner entered. The part-timer shot to the lead early, while AJ and Justin M tucked in. They came thru the 400 in about 63 or 64, and on the backstretch, Justin took off as planned, with AJ waiting. No challenge came from Thomas, so Justin held on for the win, with AJ being content with second.

The girls race featured Molly from Thomas, who was out quick and made it clear the race was for 2nd and 3rd places. Annelise stayed close for a while, making the second lap tough for herself, but still managed 2:36, while Alyssa came on strong in the second lap to run 2:37.

The 200 did not go well, with the Thomas 400, not 100, kids leading the way to a 1-8 result for us. The Pole Vault results showed 3 points, but we managed 4 in the Shot Put, and the score was now 53-46.

In the 3200, Jared and Tim were both back for their 3rd events, while Geoff and Afro Thunder were fresh for us. Jared led the first mile, trying to keep the pace slow (5:22), so Geoff knew he had to go to work at that point. He threw in laps of 73, 74 and 73 to try to take some kick out of Jared. John held on for a 5th lap, but then dropped off quicker than Tim. On the last lap, Jared made a strong move and just had too much speed for Geoff, who managed a 4:52 second mile.

The 3000 was the Val and Amanda show. They went out hard the first lap (81), and found that there were three Thomas girls giving it a shot. Despite slowing significantly to come thru the 1600 in 6:06, one Thomas girl fell off. The last 1400 started with a 92 and a 90, but then the girls pushed the pace and turned in an 85, while opening up a gap and won going away with 37 and 38 for Val and Amanda in the last 200.

The field event results came in (6 in the Triple Jump and 4 in the High Jump) and both Schroeder teams needed one relay win in order to win their meets. The boys 4 x 100 was close, but the 4 x 400 was not. The girls lost both relays by a large margin, setting up each 4 x 800 relay to decide the meet.

For the boys, Ben led off and made sure he had a lead for Justin R. Justin went out in a 73 as he tried to let the Thomas runner lead him, before getting much more intense on the second lap and giving Justin M a nice lead over Tim. Tim looked like he might make it very interesting, but couldn't match Justin's speed near the end, so AJ received the baton safely ahead of Jared, who was much more worn out that AJ. So, AJ was able to run 63-64 laps and secure the victory.

The girls race was excellent. Amanda led off with a 2:37 and a lead. Alyssa ran like a veteran and also went 2:37, to maintain a small lead. Molly was running third for Thomas and caught Annelise in the first 150m, but Annelise stayed close most of the way, and handed off to Val about 4-5 seconds down, running 2:36. Val went thru the 200 in about 32, but had not closed the gap by much. That was actually a good sign, indicating that the Thomas anchor was out way too quickly. Indeed, as Val went thru the 400 in 66, it was clear that she was gaining, and she took the lead with just about 300m to go. The Thomas girl was gassed and Val went on to a 2:22 split to win the event handily, and the meet.