BLOOMINGTON BOUND

BOYS TRACK: Everetts, Gilbert, Turner, Lester punch state tickets

By PEDRO VELAZCO
Kokomo Tribune May 26, 2017

Prior to taking flight in the 1,600-meter run in the Kokomo Boys Track and Field Regional, Western athlete Josh Everetts broke out his own rendition of “Hey Jude” by the Beatles.

A few minutes after that ode to the Fab Four, he broke four fantastic laps to crush the field in the 1,600 and win the event by more than eight seconds.

“Before every race, I sing a song,” Everetts said. “It’s a different one every [time]. Sectional it was ‘All Star’ by Smash Mouth and [Thursday] it was ‘Hey Jude’ by the Beatles.”

Now he has to come up with a song for the state meet to get him zoned in. He hasn’t picked one yet, and when he does, he’ll keep it to himself until it’s time to shine.

Everetts also qualified for state in a second event by taking third in the 3,200. A week from today, he’ll join teammate Tyler Gilbert (the champion in the discus), Eastern’s Aren Turner (second, pole vault), and Peru double qualifier Jonah Lester (the champ in the long jump and runner-up in high jump) at the IHSAA State Finals on June 2 in Bloomington.

“It’s fantastic,” Everetts said of going back to state as a senior. “My coach and I have been working a lot this whole spring. This has been my dream, this has been my goal. Going into this race [the 1,600] I was very confident and I felt strong. I knew beforehand that I wanted to take it out a little slower and start progressively picking it up and it worked out great.”

Everetts hung around with the leaders for the first two laps, made an outside move at the end of the second lap and immediately started putting space between himself and second. By the end of the race, he was ahead by approximately 60 yards. His winning time was 4:21.2.

“That’s kind of what I knew he could do all year but I didn’t expect to see it quite like that,” Western coach Gary Jewell said of Everetts’ 1,600 surge. “He dropped a 62-second third lap. That was an exciting race to watch. That’s kind of what his plan was, to do that, to pick it up at about 600 meters, but it was going so slowly that it’s like, ‘OK, let’s just break this thing open now and get it over with’ and then after that it was just a matter of finishing the race.”

Everetts steadily moved up during the 3,200 and finished third in 9:43.48, taking the third and last automatic qualifying spot for state. The top three in each event and anyone who reaches a state standard time or distance qualifies automatically for state.

Gilbert also dominated his main event, taking first in the discus with a top effort of 167 feet, 10 inches. He won by more than a dozen feet over second place despite battling illness the last week that hurt his preparation.

“He is one of the most technically sound throwers in the state,” Jewell said of the Panther junior. “Last week at sectional he had the best throw of anybody in the state in sectional competition. [Thursday] we did not have the best conditions — we had a tailwind, which is not good for the discus — but he was still able to get it out there.”

Peru’s Lester is also going to state in two events. He threw down the gauntlet with a personal record in the long jump with his first effort, then responded with another when he lost his lead. He took first with an effort of 21-8.25.

“I wasn’t expecting to win in long jump,” the Bengal Tiger senior said. “I PRed twice. My original PR was 21-5, and then [Northwood’s Bronson Yoder] beat me on his last jump with a 21-7, and then my last jump I jumped a 21-8 and PRed again, so it was pretty exciting.”

Lester competed at state last season in the high jump. He’s going back to state in that event as well after clearing 6-4. Plymouth’s Nathan Patterson set the bar for the meet at a whopping 6-10. Last year’s state experience should help Lester over the next few days, and helped motivate him this season.

“It helps a lot because last year I jumped 6-4 at regionals, and then at state I only cleared 6-2, so I was hungry this year to see what I can do at state,” he said.

Eastern’s Turner cleared 13-3 to take second in pole vault. He was 3 inches off the winning height of 13-6 by Goshen’s Lucas DeMoya.

“It’s awesome. It was one of our goals this year, we had talked about this at the beginning of the year,” Eastern coach Kyle Hannah said of getting a Comet to the state meet.

“He was really in a groove. He had his steps and mark down really well.

Hannah was impressed that the Comet junior was able to hang with the top two vaulters entering the meet — DeMoya and Penn’s Tray Hahner, who took third. Turner wedged between those two and knocked out the rest of the field.

“Earlier in the week he was at the very, very bottom in terms of last week’s jumps,” Hannah said. “It shows a lot. If you have the right day, the right night, you could be able to get out.”

A notable omission from next week’s state meet is Kokomo senior Andrecus Eddington, who competed in the 100 and 200 in the regional. Eddington qualified for the finals of the 100 and 200 dashes — winning his heat of the 200 prelims. But in the final of the 100, while battling to hold on to second place, Eddington slowed over the last quarter of the race due to an injury. He finished seventh in the 100, but had to scratch out of the 200 and misses out on an opportunity to reach state.

“I was so heartbroken for him,” Kokomo coach Tom Byrnes said. “We tried to treat him with kid gloves when he said that he felt something very early in the year. I don’t know what I would have done different. I’m sorry for him and his family. Great kid, I know he had a hope of getting back to the state meet and the possibility of getting a medal. I felt like we were there, we were so healthy in the last three-four weeks this season.”