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Gray leads Leo to Class 1A title
Updated: May 28, 2011 7:04PM
CHARLESTON, Ill. — It was a wait-and-hurry-up kind of a day for Leo’s boys track team.
First, senior Bruce Gray had to sweat out a delay while officials tried to figure out whether he or Peoria Christian junior Jonathan Hutchison won the Class 1A 100-meter dash at Eastern Illinois’ O’Brien Field.
After a few minutes, the race was declared a dead heat with the runners dividing the first- and second-place points. Both were credited with the same time: 10.783 seconds.
“I’m still happy with my performance,” Gray said after the judges’ split decision. “That’s a PR as well.”
Later, with threatening weather in the area, IHSA officials ran the meet ahead of schedule, keeping Gray busy. He wound up anchoring the Lions to second place in both the 400 and 800 relays before finishing fifth in the 200.
The Lions needed every one of those points and a few more to hold off Harrisburg 42-41 for their sixth state title and first since 2003.
“It means a lot,” Gray said of the team title. “We haven’t won one in a few years.”
Coach Ed Adams felt the same way, choking up after the Lions claimed the first-place trophy. “That’s what our goal was the whole year: to win a state championship,” he said. “We had some mishaps on Thursday [in the preliminaries] but we still thought we had a chance to win.”
One of the issues the Lions faced was a knee injury suffered in the prelims by Rueben Blackwel. He came back to finish second in the 110 hurdles, just behind Northwestern football recruit Joseph Jones of Plano. Leo freshman Theodore Hopkins chipped in with sixth-place points in the 200 and joined Gray, Andre Patton and Denzel Tucker on the placing relays.
“This group had maybe not as much talent,” said Adams, who coached four of the Lions’ previous five title teams. “But this group worked very hard and [were] very good kids, too.”
Also putting forth an honest effort was senior Garret Payne, who helped Glenbard South earn the first state trophy in program history. The Raiders were third in Class 2A with 40 points behind Cahokia (62) and Glenwood (44).
Payne won the 400 (47.31) for the second consecutive season, anchored the runner-up 400 relay team and was fifth in the 100. Teammate Joe Boesso won the high jump by clearing 6 feet, 7 inches.
“That was definitely the hardest 400 of my entire life,” said Payne, who edged downstate Morton’s D.J. Zahn by .14. “I’ve never felt so exhausted. ... I’ve been thinking about this race since last year, how close Zahn was [.10 back in second place]. ... I told him we both had to run faster than the 3A winner, which we ended up doing.”
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