It is a bond that was formed between seniors Jordan Penrose, Seth Brouhard, Drew Hickman and Will Holmes during a run to the state meet in 2014 and fortified by a group vacation during the summer to Norris Lake.
Thursday night at Welcome Stadium, the quartet added another week of running together after finishing second at the Division II regional meet to advance back to state.
“We will be a little nervous today,” Shawnee anchor Will Holmes said. “We are all seniors and when you get a little nervous, you want to go as fast as you can and when that happens it always leads to a personal record.”
The personal record (8:15), though, had been a pesky foe for Shawnee before it was smashed Thursday with a 7:59.74.
“We had to have both,” Holmes said. “If we didn’t get both, we’d be disappointed. If we had qualified but ran a 8:14, we would be scratching our head.”
Shawnee was fifth after the first handoff, but moved up to take the lead heading into the anchor before falling to Dunbar down the stretch.
“We knew their first and last runners were strong,” Hickman said of Dunbar. “We knew we had to attack their second and third legs and that’s what we did. Their anchor is very strong.”
While Shawnee was not surprised about advancing to state, Greenon senior Dan Wallace was a little surprised to head to the state meet in discus.
Wallace, who entered with the eighth-best throw, unleashed a 144-foot-10-inch toss on his final attempt in the first flight to finish fourth.
“I actually got a hold of one today,” Wallace said. “Actually, I have I am a big huge head case. My first throw is usually the best and then I try too hard an it gets worse.”
Part of the key for Wallace was knowing he would not be in the running to win it with returning regional champ Noah Castle of Wauseon in the field.
“I knew he would win,” Wallace said. “I think knowing I was not going to win, but I could compete to go on actually helped me. That might have been what it was, not having the pressure of winning it.”
The running finals and the final field evens will be held on Saturday at Welcome Stadium.
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