Boys track and field: Fast pace in 3,200 knocks Bale out of return trip to state

Trey Bale doesn't like to chase anybody down.

He likes to run at the front, to set the pace and put pressure on the rest of the field.

Setting the pace has already earned Bale a fifth-place finish in the 3,200-meter run at the UIL Class 2A state championships last year and a sixth-place nod at the state cross country meet last fall.

Bale, a junior from Kermit, didn't get to set the pace at the Region I-2A Championships on Tuesday at Ratliff Stadium.

Trying to get a spectacular kick at the end of the race, Bale couldn't catch a surprising second-place run by Muleshoe sophomore Sterling Lepard, and Bale won't be heading back to Austin for a return trip in the 3,200.

Only the top two finishers qualify for state.

"I'm very disappointed," Bale said. "I put in a lot of hard work, and to fall short at the end is hard, especially when it's only by a few seconds."

Bale finished in third place with a recorded time of 10 minutes, 4.77 seconds, a mark that put him several steps behind Lepard, who held on to reach state in 10:03.88.

Holliday's Hance Loyd won the race in 10:00.07.

"The first lap was faster than I expected," Loyd said. "I could hear the guy behind me. I didn't know who it was, I thought it was Trey Bale, but it was Sterling. He pushed me."

Lepard only had one goal for the race.

Stick to Loyd like peanut butter to the roof of a dog's mouth.

"My main goal this meet was to stay with the guy from Holliday," Lepard said. "He always seems to get out there, establish a lead and keep that lead, so I knew he was the one to stay with."

Under normal circumstances, Bale would have been near the front, battling with the leaders.

But he slowly gave up ground to the top four runners during the first half of the race, and by the time he started trying to make up the gap, he'd already given up too many precious seconds.

"I didn't run my race," Bale said. "It started out that way, and then I slowed down."

Bale caught both Crane's Joey Escalante and Alpine's Tony Morales, who finished fourth and fifth, respectively, but he never caught the determined strides of Lepard, who didn't run cross country because of an inflammation of his hip flexor.

He has one more chance to make a return trip to state. Bale is scheduled to run the 1,600 today.

"I have to make sure I work really hard, treat my body right and come out really hard," Bale said. "Got to make up for it."