The annual Wildcat Classic was held last Saturday at Nutter Fieldhouse on the campus of the University of Kentucky in Lexington. As the first big indoor track meet of the season it always loaded up with a ton of runner’s sprints and distance alike. A recap of the action is below:
Video Interviews from the Meet
Double Winners
The only double winners on the day were a couple of sprinters. Alisha Adair (Western Hills) and Zack Main (Owensboro) both won the 60m Dash and 200m Dash.
Adair, as stated in the preview for this meet as owned the sprint department for indoor season the last seasons and she showed out no different on Saturday. She first won the 60m Dash in 7.77 over Brianne Brown of North Oldham. Adair’s winning time was better than her previous times when she won the same event the last two years. Most impressive was her victory in the 200m Dash, where she took down the Wildcat Classic Meet Record of 25.71 that was set by Tiffany Rogers of Butler in 2009. Adair crossed the line with a time of 25.67.
Main won the 60m Dash with a 7.03 over Jazz Hayes of Central by .07. Main then followed up the performance with a win in the 200m Dash running a 22.76 to win by .15 over Phillip Francis of Central.
Standouts (Girls)
Alisha Adair was the star of the show on the girls side along with several other impressive performances. Brianne Brown as stated above was second in the 60m Dash, but before that she won the 60m Hurdles in a Meet Record time of 9.22. That record had stood since 2004, making it the second oldest meet record that was still left. She beat a solid group of hurdlers which included Kiara Austin (2nd Place 9.82, Fort Knox), Sydney Winninger (3rd Place 9.92, Barren County), and Dominique Edmonds (4th Place 9.93, Male.)
Cassidy Hale of duPont Manual continued her success from XC season (2011 AAA State Champion) with a victory in the One Mile Run finishing just three seconds off of Emma Brink’s meet record. She bested 2nd Place Maddox Patterson of Sayre by 10 seconds. That was Patterson’s first indoor race ever.
Adair was not the only runner from Western Hills to win, as her teammate Anna Curlin brought home a victory individually in the 400m Dash with a 1:01.63. Then Adair and Curlin combined with Harper Jones and Alaina Hall for a win in the 1600m Relay at the end of the meet with a solid early season time of 4:15.
Danville’s Kaitlin Snapp cruised to victory in the Two Mile Run with a 11:36 and duPont Manual’s Jasmine Athanasakes won the 800m Run with a 2:27.
The best race of the day could arguably be the last race in the 3200m Relay as Sacred Heart and duPont Manual both esclipe the previous meet record of 10:18 set by Manual last year. Sacred Heart blew the old mark away to win with a 10:01.71 while Manual was second with a 10:09.58.
Standouts (Boys)
Main was the big winner in the sprints as stated above. Jacob Mclimore of Bryan Station won the 60m Hurdles over Akio Tonge of Fort Knox 8.70 to 8.79. Jacob Duvall of Bullitt East rounded out the top three with a 8.92. In the boys 400m Dash, Jaz Hayes of Central rolled to a 50.21. This is a First Team MileSplit National Elite performance and a fine showing for early January.
The 800m Race was a close one that North Hardin’s Josh Ortega pulled out with a 2:01.27 leading a group of four that all went under 2:02. Kevin Ross of Bryan Station was second 2:01.71, Wesley Morris (Daviess County) third with a 2:01.90, and Landon Souder (Mercer County) was forth with a 2:01.96. No one cracked 2 flat, but the depth (17 under 2:10) shows good things are a coming.
The Boys Mile was another close one that Nicholas Laureano of Lexington Catholic crossed the line first in. He ran a new best time of 4:30.81 to edge out Vincent Stephen of St. Xavier by a quarter of a second. This was another race with plenty of depth as the next four all came in under 4:35.37 with Taylor Sanders (North Oldham) 3rd, Will Short (duPont Manual) 4th, Sam Meredith (Trinity) 5th, and Kyle Covert (Eastern) 6th.
As predicted the best individual race of the day was the Boys Two Mile Run. Foot Locker Finalist Jacob Thomson was the main headliner and he did not let the down the field. He cruised through the mile in the 4:50 range finishing with a 9:29. Thomson leading pushed the field all to some awesome best new times. Butler’s Patrick Gregory was second with a 9:32, St. Xavier then loaded up with the next three (Zack Beavin 9:34, Connor Sheryak 9:36, and Sam Lewis 9:39.) The fun did not stop there as five more runners came in under the 10 minute mark (Nicholas Laureano, Nicholas Waltman, Chris Striegel, Taylor Sanders, and Jack Grundy.) Coming into this race since 2003 only 39 KY boys had ever run sub 10 during indoors. This one race Saturday added six more to the list. The top five in that race all broke into the top 18 since 2003 as well (Thomson #5, Gregory #7, Beavin #11, Sheryak #14, and Lewis #18.) This meet better watch it or it is going to get a reputation as a Two Mile Haven (Eaton 9:10, Long 9:23) in recent years.
The Relays finished up the meet with Bryan Station taking the 1600m Relay in 3:32. The 3200m Relay was a battle between Eastern and St. Xavier with Eastern getting the final push to win with a new school indoor best of 8:27.