The track and field season ended before it even started last...
The track and field season ended before it even started last year for Ouray, Ridgway and Silverton student-athletes, teasing them with a few practices before COVID-19 yanked it away from them prior to the first meet.
So while Justin Beserra, Paton Edwards, Canyon Ishikawa and Cory Thomsen just completed their sophomore years, athletically speaking they might as well have been freshmen, having never competed in a state-sanctioned high school track and field competition before this spring.
Apparently nobody told them they weren’t supposed to win. Because there they were, on the top step of the medals podium on Saturday.
The quartet won an individual state title last weekend at the state championships in Lakewood, finishing the 4×400 relay in first place with a time of 3:30.88, beating the squad from Limon by a couple of seconds. It was the first individual state title for the combined Ouray-Ridgway-Silverton team since 2006.
“When Paton crossed the finish line, me and Justin and Cory just looked at each other in disbelief,” Ishikawa said. “It was a close race the whole time.”
Ouray Athletic Director Bernie Pearce acknowledged there’s “certainly a level of naivete” with a group that young and inexperienced — but not in a negative way. They may not feel the strain and pressure that juniors or seniors do — student-athletes who are close to or at the end of their high school careers. That enables them to “run with unbridled enthusiasm,” Pearce said.
“They ran so well in terms of letting the running form dictate the pace of the race rather than trying to go faster,” he said.
Boys’ Coach Roger Carlson said the young athletes bought into the program and did everything he asked them to do.
“For sophomores to be focused and to follow through and run the races the way I wanted them to run it, I couldn’t ask for more,” he said.
One of the relay team members, Thomsen, wasn’t even supposed to participate in the 4×400 race. But Ouray senior Scott Brown was dealing with a hip flexor injury. So Carlson called on Thomsen, a third-team alternate, about 35 minutes before the preliminary 4×400 race. Thomsen ran his leg of the 400-meter relay 3 1/2 seconds faster than he had all season. In the finals, he trimmed another second off.
Beserra said he saw the team’s potential early on during a practice when the four sophomores ran 400-meter races and compiled good times.
“I knew it would get better as the season went on,” he said.
Ishikawa admitted he had low expectations for himself entering the season. Running in middle school is one thing. The level of competition increases significantly in high school. But as he placed in races during the spring and accumulated medals, his confidence in his own skills grew.
“I’m definitely very excited for what the future has in store,” Beserra said. “We need to keep on our training, keep on working hard.”
Carlson said the 4×400 team was so focused that the four stepped off the podium after receiving their medals and completed a cool-down run. Parents and other spectators were bewildered. It was the last race until the spring of 2022. Why run some more?
“That’s because that’s what I expect of them,” Carlson said “That’s what I always asked them to do. It speaks volumes of their commitment and their focus.”
In addition to the first place finish, the quartet of Edwards, Ishikawa, Thomsen and Ridgway senior Owen Lane finished second in the 4×800 relay with a time of 8:32.54.
Edwards finished in third place in the 800-meter dash with a time of 2:00.21. Brown also finished in third place in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 41.37.