Track and field: Star-studded field dominates at Region I-2A Championships

>> SHOELESS: Kolby Barnhill, a senior from Merkel, swept the 110-meter and 300 hurdles at the Region I-2A Track and Field Championships on Wednesday to return to state for the first time in two years.

But he had to finish the first race at a disadvantage.

Midway through the 110 hurdles, Barnhill kicked a hurdle as he cleared it. His right shoe came off.

Barnhill kept flying over the hurdles anyway to win the race in 14.99 seconds.

"That's kind of a first for me," Barnhill said. "It started slipping, fell off and I didn't really care at the moment."

Barnhill wasn't about to let a shoe ruin his shot to return to state. Running as a sophomore, Barnhill reached the state meet in the 110 hurdles. But he couldn't make the return trip a year ago after falling at the regional meet.

"It was probably one of the worst feelings you could have at a track meet," Barnhill said. "I wanted to make up for the lost opportunity."

>> SPEAKING OF MERKEL: Barnhill might not even be the best hurdler at his own school.

Top hurdler honors at Merkel go to Carly Szabo, who is the two-time defending state champion in both the 100 and 300 hurdles. Szabo also placed third in the high jump at state a year ago.

Szabo didn't disappoint at the Region I-2A Championships this year. Szabo won the 100 hurdles in 14.43 seconds, the 300 hurdles in 45.39 and the high jump with a leap of 5 feet, 6 inches.

A third-place finish in the long jump rounded out Szabo's list of accolades, but Merkel's third-place finish in her fifth event - the 400-meter relay - left Szabo wanting more.

"We were expected to win," Szabo said. "The other top two teams fell in the preliminaries. We ended up with third, and that was a huge disappointment."

>> JACK OF ALL TRADES: Floydada sprinter Aarrhon Flores is a known commodity.

At the UIL Class 2A state championships a year ago Flores won the long jump, took second in the 100-meter dash and third in both the 200 and the 800 relay.

Considering that Flores was battling back spasms a month ago, though, he turned in an eye-popping performance at the Region I-2A Championships this week.

Flores won the long jump on Tuesday, then pulled off the sprint double by winning the 100 in 10.65 seconds and beating Crane star Isidro Garcia in the 200 in 21.32.

Adding the triple jump to his workload would have been impressive, but Flores didn't want to risk another injury to his back.

"I didn't want to inflame the back even more," Flores said. "Sitting out the triple is better for me because I don't have to do so much, and I want gold in all three events."

>> FINISHING KICK: Wall senior Colleen Adams, a state qualifier a year ago, lost the 3,200 on Tuesday to a withering finishing kick from Spearman's Sutten Garnett.

So Adams decided to take a page out of Garnett's book during the 1,600 on Wednesday.

"I didn't start my kick at the quarter like I did yesterday," Adams said. "I waited until the 200 mark to start moving up."

Trailing after the first three and a half laps, Adams chased down San Saba's Daness Vasquez and Sonora's Kallie Humphrey on the homestretch to win the 1,600.

Adams fell in the 1,600 at the regional meet a year ago. This time she gets to head to Austin in both events.

>> BLAST FROM THE PAST: Nearly three decades ago, Jim McIntire won the Region I-2A shot put title for New Deal with a throw of 59 feet, 8.5 inches in 1980.

Twenty-nine years later, after two years as Texas Tech's starting center, the birth of three daughters and a career spent working his way up to the general manager at Alsco Inc. in Lubbock, McIntire still holds the Region I-2A shot put record.

McIntire lives in Shallowater now. He's known Russ Reagan, the father of Idalou senior Sean Reagan, for years.

Reagan tossed the shot put 55 feet as a freshman. McIntire always thought the kid would break his record. But even though Reagan fell a little short, McIntire made the trip down to Odessa from Lubbock to present Reagan with his first-place medal on Wednesday.

"I've been watching Sean for years," McIntire said. "If anyone were to beat the record, I would have wanted it to be him."

>> PUTTING THEIR BEST FOOT FORWARD: The city of Odessa has held two Region I track meets in a span of less than a week.

And aside from the usual minor mishaps, Ratliff Stadium played host to a pair of track meets that kept clicking and ran on schedule for both days of each meet.

Outgoing Odessa College athletic director John Wilfert directed both the Region I-4A meet and the Region I-2A meet, but he had plenty of help from the community.

"My hat's off to the OHS and Permian coaching staffs and many others from the community that came out and helped," Crane boys track and field coach Henry Anderson said. "With John doing the organization and all, you still have to have the workers to run off the meet."