Melayna was participating in the IHSAA track regionals at Kokomo last Tuesday night, May 21st.
Noel was already traveling down with the team and Marissa had her scholarship night that same evening, so Morgan and I picked Nolan up from school and then after dropping him off at the house, we drove down to Kokomo to watch the Lady Tigers compete in the regionals. Same as the week before, the top three runners in each event would advance to the State Finals on May 31st.
Thankfully the rain had moved through earlier in the day so it would be a dry meet, but it was really windy with gusts over 25 mph so the runners would be running right into a headwind, which definitely would not help with times.
It's always fun to see your name / child's name on the back of a Regional Qualifier t-shirt.
Our 4x800 relay team would kick off the events of the evening but unfortunately, they would finish 5th and would not advance. Then we had one runner advance in the 100 meter dash and then Annie would run prelims in the 100 hurdles. She made it to the final race later in the evening but then she would not place high enough to advance out to the state finals in that event.
Melayna and Bailey would come up into the stands to cheer her on in her 100 hurdles.
Once the prelim events were over, the meet would begin with all final events and Melayna made her way down to the infield to begin warming up. She and Annie would run the 300 hurdles at 8:30. Before the race, it was neat to see Melayna and Annie praying together in the infield and then a few minutes later, another competitor from our conference came over and hugged both of our girls and then she prayed with them again. I love the camaraderie and friendships that are developed through sports and Melayna has made some friends from other schools and although they fight fiercely during the race, they can hug and shake hands and just be friends before and after.
I took a video of the actual race but for some reason, I cannot download it here. Annie fought hard and made it in by hundredths of a second and she will run at the State finals next weekend. Unfortunately for Melayna, she just didn't have a good race right from the gun. Her steps were off or something and she stutter stepped the first three hurdles, which definitely affected her time. She ended up finishing just at 50 seconds (which she would have been thrilled with just three weeks ago), and her season would come to a tearful end. 'Definitely not the finish that she was hoping for, but she is only a sophomore so it was definitely a learning experience.
All in all, she had a great season and the Lady Tigers were able to advance several individuals out to the state meet and finished as the Regional Champions for the first time since 2017 or so.
+++
On Thursday night, Noel would head up to Goshen High School for the IHSAA Boy's Track Regionals where both Blake and Eric would be running in the 110 high hurdles and the 300 lows.
Blake would advance to the state finals and the boys would finish in 2nd place overall at the Regional Meet.
+++
Former Coach Rob Peters, Current Coach Noel Howett (from Warsaw), and current coach Luke Howett (coaching for a rival school).
The head coach typed up a press release after the meet and although he wrote something about each regional runner, I wanted to keep the parts that the coach wrote about Blake and Coach Howett and then also Eric. 'Such great stories about each guy.
Melayna just finished her indoor track season for 2024. She had her first indoor meet back in February and I wrote about it here. Since that meet, she has ran three other meets. Since most of those meets have fallen on a Saturday when I was gone, and Noel is coaching anyway, he has been able to go and watch her and then she would often text me her times or results after her races were over.
Back on March 1st, she ran in a HSR event and placed 12th overall with a time of 10.67 in the 60 meter hurdles.
The following week, she ran a second HSR event and she placed a bit better with a time of 10.62.
Finally, this last week, she ran in her third HSR event at Taylor University and she finished 3rd overall with a new PR time 10.34.
Outdoor season kicks off with their first meet next Tuesday night at Homestead. She is anxious to get outside and to run a full 100 hurdle and 300 hurdle event. We are definitely excited for her -- although we are hoping for some warmer weather to sit outside in. LOL
And for fun, here are some pictures that they took on picture / media day. I'm posting them here to save for future reference.
This past Tuesday night was IHSAA girl's track sectional. The top two girls for each event would run and represent their schools and then the top three overall finishers in each event would advance to regionals next week.
+++
Melayna would be running in the 100 and 300 hurdles and just like at conference, she would have to run the prelims in the 100 hurdles first. The top two in each heat would automatically make it into the finals and then the next two fastest times would round out the event. However, unlike conference where nine runners advance, only the top eight advance and place at sectionals so unfortunately, despite running a new PR, Laynie would finish in 9th place, just outside of the finals.
Morgan had a scholarship awards night at the same time as sectionals, so Marissa took video of both of Melayna's races for me and texted me times as soon as each race was over. This first video is really blurry after uploading so you can hardly see her but Melayna is over in lane six (I think) and is wearing an orange shirt this time. Basically you have to look for the girl in fourth place in this heat to know it's her. (I apologize for the loud yelling... she had quite the fan club of friends and family cheering her on).
100 Hurdles -- New PR -- 17.49
+++
A little while later, she would come back to the line to run in the 300 hurdles. I think she was seeded 12th in this race and they would only run the race one time and then give placings off of those times. She was in lane 2 in this race (I think). She had a slower start again but came back to make up ground and finished 2nd in her heat. Once again, Melayna would run a new PR and would once again finish just outside of the scoring with a 9th place finish.
300 Hurdles -- New PR -- 51.82
+++
Congratulations to her teammate Annie, who placed 3rd in the 300's and automatically advanced to regionals and placed 4th in the 100's and should receive a call-back to run those as well. And congratulations to the entire Lady Tiger's team for being sectional champions once again.
What a great freshman season, Melayna! We couldn't be more excited for you and your accomplishments. And we already cannot wait for next year!
Melayna is running hurdles once again this year and it has been a fun experience for her as a high schooler and with Noel as her hurdle coach. They get to work together everyday for practice and she is finally able to do all of the drills that she has heard him talk about and teach others over the years. It's also nice that he is the one that she can talk to right before (and right after) her events.
These past two Saturdays, she has competed in her first indoor qualifiers and she has gotten a good start to her high school hurdling career running 11.5 or better. That time isn't good enough to qualify her for the indoor state meet at IWU next weekend, but she is learning new things and gaining valuable experience for the outdoor season.
Here are a couple of pictures that a student photographer took of Melayna at the last meet. I'll just post them here for future reference. (And hopefully we will get some good "action" shots later).
We are excited to see how much she will grow and improve in the coming weeks and months.
On Saturday, May 14th, Melayna participated in the middle school conference meet that was being held at Plymouth High School. Earlier in the week, thunderstorms were in the forecast, but by the time that we woke up early Saturday morning, those storms had moved out of the forecast and it was a blazing hot 89 degrees and not too many clouds in the sky. Noel dropped her off to catch the bus with her teammates and gave her instructions on drinking plenty of water and trying to stay in the shade as much as possible in between her events. She would have a long full day with five races possible.
+++
Nolan, Noel and I arrived at the high school around 9:45 and the preliminary races were to begin at 10:00. They would hold the 100 meter dash, then the 100 hurdles, and then the 200 dash preliminaries taking the top eight on to the finals which would begin the meet officially at 11:15.
Heading into the meet, Melayna's 100 hurdle time seeded her in 2nd place behind a really quick girl from Lincoln Middle School but anything can happen, especially in the hurdle events, so she needed to advance into the finals in order to see how it would all go. Thankfully, she easily won her preliminary heat with a clean uneventful run and she did advance into the final race. While she was practicing with the other runners, the girl that came into the meet with fastest seed time was considerably slower and she mentioned that she had injured herself the week before and was in a lot of pain. She wasn't sure if she would feel good enough to run her best. Even though it helped Melayna's chances of winning, we were honestly disappointed to know that the fastest girl wouldn't be competing at her best because it would have made for a great competitive race. That's how it goes sometimes though and hopefully Laynie would step up and take advantage of the situation.
After all of the preliminary races were finished, Melayna would head back to the start line to run the 100 hurdle final. She went into that race with the fastest seed time and would be running in lane 4. I was so nervous for her before the start of that race that my hands were shaking almost too much to even hold the phone steady so my apologies for the quality of the video. (I was also shooting in bright sunlight so I couldn't even see my phone screen as to know if I was actually filming it correctly. Thankfully the 100 race worked out in my favor. LOL)
Congratulations to Melayna! The Conference Champion in the 100 hurdles with a new PR of 17:83. This one was NOT hand held so it will become an official time and official PR. (It also qualifies for the standard at the middle school state meet in Terre Haute this upcoming Saturday, should she choose to run).
+++
After a short break, Melayna would be back to run the 2nd leg of the 4x100 meter dash. She ran a new PR split time of just over 13 seconds, which she was thrilled about but the team fell just short of the win and finished with a close 2nd place. With their time, they also met the time standard for the state meet.
+++
Next up was the 200 meter hurdles. They do not run a preliminary race of this event since it's longer, so they would run two heats. She was in the fastest heat and ended up placing 3rd in the heat and eventually placing 3rd overall in the conference. She was happy with her placing, but not as happy with her time of 36.0 seconds as she's run two seconds faster in the past and was hoping for another win. I also fell short of my goal in this race as I thought that I was filming it, but since I couldn't see the screen in the bright sunlight, I was only taking pictures and not video. Oops.
+++
And for the final event of the day, Melayna would once again lead off the 4x400. As they were announcing the first call for that race, I was underneath the bleachers with Nolan as we were trying to get out of the hot sun for a few minutes. She saw me and started crying saying that she was hot and tired and didn't want to run that race at all. I told her that she only had one race to go and that she could do it. She was still trying to get herself together when her three teammates found her and handed her the baton. They left to go check in but I wondered if it would affect her run at all. 'Turns out that she ran a few seconds slower than her best run with a 1:10, but everyone seemed exhausted from the heat and sun at that point and I think that all of the teams ran slower than their best. Melayna is in the black uniform running on the inside lanes and you can see her run to the front at about the 100 meter mark and she kept them out front until the hand-off and her teammates hung on to the lead finishing with a championship win and another state meet time qualification.
All in all, it was a very hot day but Melayna had a great meet finishing out the day with 2 first place finishes, a second place, and a third place finish. Her team finished 2nd in the conference. We are so happy for her and her hard work this season.
+++
Because the older girls had prom later in the night and they weren't sure what time we would be back, they decided to play it safe and stay home, but they asked that I send them videos of her races and keep them updated. They were so happy for her and Morgan was so sweet and made a sign that Melayna saw as soon as we drove into the garage.
++++
EDITED TO ADD: As of the time that I was originally typing this post, Melayna was trying to decide whether or not to attend and compete at the "state meet". (I put "state meet" in quotation marks because it isn't sponsored by the state as a high school IHSAA meet would be... it's more like a club meet and teams only go if their coaches turn in their times and choose to participate. In fact, some schools will be running their conference meets at the same time so it's not necessarily a fair representation of state qualifiers). But in any case, she had made the state cut in three events and had received an invitation based on her times that she needed to respond to fairly quickly. She was feeling like she didn't really want to go, but she was receiving a lot of pressure from her relay teammates who were afraid that they couldn't go if she did not. After a long discussion with us, a few tears, and a bit of time, she made the decision not to go, and Noel and I can easily support her in that decision, however it was difficult for her to go to school thinking that she was the one who would keep others from being able to run since she was an integral part of two relays. As it turns out, two alternates and one other girl from the main relay also could not go due to busy schedules, so she was not the only one. They are still feeling proud that they were invited.
Melayna was finally able to compete in her first track meet of her 8th grade season on Tuesday night. She has had two other meets previously scheduled but both of them were cancelled due to the cold and rainy conditions that we've had this spring. When we woke up to rain once again on Tuesday, I was wondering if she'd even get that meet in, but thankfully the rain moved on in the early afternoon and the sun was shining by the time that Nolan and I arrived to MapleCreek Middle School where she would be running in the 100 hurdles, the 4x100 relay, the 200 hurdles, and the 4x400 relay. (Unfortunately, Noel wasn't able to make the meet as he was coaching a high school boys meet and the two older girls had to work).
Her 100 hurdles were the first event of the night. She has been working on starting out of the blocks for this event this year but since they had only arrived 10 -15 minutes before the meet was suppose to start, she barely had time to stretch and warm up so she decided to ditch the starting blocks. There was also a bit of miscommunication between the starter and the announcer as he was announcing the third and final call for the girls hurdles as the race was actually starting. Melayna had a few miss steps along the way but she didn't fall and she ended up fighting hard to finish in second. (The timers weren't ready for the start of the race either, so no one had accurate times as they had Melayna running a really super fast 16 or 17 seconds, which would be a new PR and she doesn't think she ran quite that quick yet).
There is Laynie over in lane three wearing the black uniform. At this point in the race, it was anyone's race as she was right up there tied with the other two.
Then the runner from Maple Creek kicked it in to another gear and it was a race between 2nd and 3rd.
On the way home, she was talking about how uncomfortable her race was and she felt like she was flailing all over the place, but after Noel watched the video, he reassured her that she was actually in a good place for point in the season and they'd work on a few little things in the days ahead but not to be discouraged because he thought she actually had pretty good form. That seemed to make her feel better about it.
After a few minutes, she would be back to run the second leg of the 4x100. I tried to catch pictures of that race but we were facing right into the sun so you can't really see who the runners are. They finished 2nd overall in that race out of 6 teams, so Melayna was happy with that.
Here they are lined up at the starting line to receive their instructions....
Melayna's third event would come over half-way through the meet as she would run the 200 varsity hurdles. She would be in the first lane for that race and would have a much better run in this hurdle event. She finished 2nd overall and although I don't know the exact time, she thought that she was very close to a new PR in that event.
After Noel watched the video of her 200 hurdles, he told her that she ran those really well. She just got beat by a faster girl. There's nothing you can do about that, right?
Last up for the night was the 4x400. She does not like to run the 400 but she says that her compromise is that if they are going to make her run it, at least she is going to run the first leg so she knows exactly how to run it and what she needs to do to be in first place when she hands off the baton. They finished 2nd in this relay as well and she ran a 1:10. (Not her best time, but not too bad for her this early in the season).
Here she is in lane 2 waiting for the start.
Her next meet is scheduled for Monday night at her home track....but there is also rain in the forecast so we'll see.
This past Saturday was Marissa's middle school state track invite down at Terre Haute South Vigo High School. When she was first invited two weeks ago, she had felt honored to have been asked and was excited about going, but as it got closer and closer with each passing day, she began to get more and more nervous. At first she offered to just run as the alternate since she has been injured, but one of the regular relay runners confirmed that she would miss the meet due to a soccer tournament and the official alternate would miss the meet because she was going to be at Cedar Point. That sealed the deal for Marissa. She was in and running the first leg of the relay, no matter what!
Thankfully, although the meet started at 9:00 a.m., she wasn't running until the afternoon so we didn't have to leave our house until around 9:00. Due to road construction and heavy traffic, it took us a little longer than the map said that it should but we still arrived at the track right when the Finals were beginning around 1:00 in the afternoon. I paid my entrance fee and then we picked up Marissa's t-shirt, before beginning our slow walk around the track to find the team's tent and getting her checked in. We walked a little bit but we didn't see a tent with the school's name on it, nor did we see any of the athletes. We knew that there were several already there but where was the coach? Finally, when we went underneath the grandstand, we found one of the parents sitting in folding chairs. She told us that the coach didn't make the drive down and the athletes were pretty much on they own as far as warming up and getting to the staging area for their events. Since it was so hot - 88 degrees when we arrived but quickly going up to a high of 92 - one of the parents went to the store and bought a canopy and then a cooler of ice and water to ensure that the kids were staying out of the sun and getting plenty to drink. (Marissa said that same parent left three times through out the day because they were all running through the water so quickly and they also realized that all of the athletes needed sunscreen!) I guess the kids didn't think through those details as all of the other meets were about 40 degrees cooler and cloudy. I'm sure thankful for the other parents who were there and who jumped in to make sure that all of the kids were staying out of the sun and staying hydrated as much as possible. It was a very long, hot day!
Marissa and I walked around for the first two or three hours just staying up and loose and watching the races to cheer on her teammates. Then when she saw that it was time to start getting warmed up, she left to go over to her team's area and I went up to the stands to watch the rest of the race. At that point, it was about 4:30 and she was suppose to run at 5:25. They would have 30 minutes to warm up and then there were to check in at the staging area to get their instructions and numbers for the relay, which would be the final event of the day.
One of the younger siblings took it upon herself to spray ice cold water on the runners and help them out! LOL
Unfortunately, the meet was already running behind and the race that was right in front of the 4x400 relay was the 2400 meter, which we had never seen run in our area before. So, despite the meet running 45 minutes behind and our relay teams sitting still in the staging area for over 30 minutes already, they still ran four heats of the 2400 meters. It felt like the 4x400 would never take place and I really wondered what condition everyone would be in after sitting for over an hour and not having eaten anything for a good part of the day. It would be almost 7:00 before the event finally took place.
Here are the teams watching the boys 4x400 relay teams race. The team from Marissa's school finished 3rd in the state and made a new school record. They were pretty excited about that.
Finally parading them out to the second staging area and eventually up to the starting line.
Marissa took off quickly but she didn't end up having the run that she had hoped for. She ran about a second slower than her PR. In fact, all of the runners ran about a second slower (or more) of their PR and despite running their seed time and finishing 8th in the state, they were all still pretty disappointed because they had wanted to set a new school record and ended up missing it by just under two seconds.
Places 8th through 11th were all pretty close, so it was a few tense moments of waiting to see where they would finish up and whether they would end up medaling.
8th place finishers - by the narrowest of margins!!
Good job girls. It wasn't an easy day but you finished well.
After getting a quick dinner to go, Marissa ended up sleeping most of the way home. We got finally got home around 11:00 p.m. and she woke up long enough to pose with her medal (and her sunburn!!)
