Colgan’s girls 4x400 team repeats as league champs

As their race began, the St. Mary’s-Colgan 4x400 relay team knew that they would have some difficult competition.
For the first two legs of the event, Girard gave the Panther squad of Jamie Naylor, Faith Miller, Hillary Dickey and Grace Miller — which placed fourth at last year’s Class 2A state championships — all that they could handle but in the end, it was Colgan that scortched their way to the event title at the Crawford-Neosho-Cherokee League track and field championships at the Raider Sports Complex in Frontenac on Thursday.
Girard won the girl’s team title with 215 and Colgan was second at 129 with Southeast third at 56.
The pressure started with the opening leg of the relay and the Colgan team knew that Girard would be tough competition.
“There were three people that were really tight in the beginning because it went 4-5-6 and we were in the fifth lane,” Naylor said. “It is important to have a good block start which is what I try to do.”
At the start, Naylor held tight with Girard.
“I wanted to keep the anticipation down so that I would not get too excited,” Naylor said. “I just try to stay with the person in the sixth lane (Girard) and they pushed me pretty hard.”
But, over the last 100 meters, Naylor started to establish a lead.
“I knew, at the last 100, I had to pass her because I wanted to have a lead when I handed off,” Naylor said. “We knew that Girard would be our toughest competition.”
At that point, Faith Miller took the baton with Girard breathing down their necks.
“It was really scary and I just wanted to stay in first the whole time,” Faith Miller said.
The race was still nip and tuck leading up to the third leg and Dickey.
“I just tried to go out really strong and pull away down the back straight away,” Dickey said. “In the last 200 I started to pick it up a little bit.”
Down that back straight away, Dickey started to open up the gap.
“I knew that Girard was really close to us so I just wanted to open the gap and I knew I had to push it harder to do that,” Dickey said.
At the point of her handoff to anchor leg Grace Miller, the Panthers kept pulling away.
“It was hard for me to know where the people are behind me because I can’t turn around but I have people yelling at me telling me the distance,” Grace Miller said. “I felt good because no one was yelling at me to tell me that someone was close behind me.”
But, the important thing for the team was the time.
“I was nervous but our main goal for tonight was to run for time,” Grace Miller said. “Our goal is to win state this year so we wanted to bring out time down and we wanted to break the CNC record (4:16) but we only ran it in 4:20.”
That is not to say that defeating Girard was not satisfying.
“Our main goal was to beat Girard because we knew that they are really good,” Dickey said. “We figured that if we could beat them then we would do well.”

Matthew Clark can be reached at matthew.clark@morningsun.net or at 620-231-2600, Ext. 140