Published: May 08, 2008 01:10 pm            

Ada track team will search for gold

Ada — For first-year Ada track coach Nathan Elliott, the best thing about his team’s impressive performance at last week’s Class 5A regional meet in Durant is that he believes the best is still to come for the Cougars.

Despite taking just 15 competitors to Durant while most of the other schools represented had full teams on hand, Elliott saw his numerically challenged team finished a strong third at the regional with 122 points, just 16 points behind the full squads fielded by Ardmore and Duncan, who tied for the team title.

The Cougars claimed six gold medals — four individually and two more in relays — and qualified 12 of the 15 athletes who went to Durant last week for this week’s 5A state meet at Ardmore.

And his team’s strong effort last week notwithstanding, Elliott said the Cougars appear ready to take another big step forward this week at a competition that has been their target all season.

“I’m thinking we’ll peak this weekend,” Elliott said. “That’s been the plan all year — to peak the week of the state meet.

“We trained last week like (the regional) was just another meet,” he added. “This week, we’ve taken it easy, so we should be rested and ready for Friday.

The kids are excited about going and competing. I think if we perform like we’re capable of, we have as good a chance as anybody. There are always surprises.”

Senior sprinter Chaz Daniels was the individual star at Ada’s regional, winning the 100 and 200 Meters and anchoring the Cougars’ gold medal-winning sprint and mile relay squads. Fellow senior Michael Roberts and sophomore Eddie Brown were also gold medal winners, with Roberts taking the 400 Meters in the fastest time of the day at any regional and Brown capturing the 300-Meter Intermediate Hurdles victory and both joining Daniels on the two winning relay quartets.

“He’s a great athlete, and that’s what he does — he steps on the track to win,” Elliott said of Daniels, the defending 5A 100-Meter champion, whose winning time of 10.36 (hand timed) was the fastest in any of the four Class 5A regional meets held last week. “I think he can perform even better, because he didn’t have anybody close to him in the 100 and the 200. This week he will.

“Michael does the same thing,” Elliott added. “When he steps on the track for the 400, he isn’t there to win ... he’s there to see how fast he can run.”

Elliott credited Daniels, Roberts and the team’s third senior, distance specialist Matt Beasley, with helping maintain the work ethic that has the Cougars primed to make a run at the Ada’s seventh state track championship but the first since the 1979 Cougars captured the 3A title.

“Our seniors have helped keep our younger kids focused all year,” he said. “The kids have just been working so hard. Our kids really pull for each other and cheer for each other. The enthusiasm has been great all year. It’s been a total team effort.”

In addition to Daniels, Roberts, Brown and Beasley (who finished second in the 800 Meters Saturday in a personal best of 2:02.07), the Cougars also got individual points at the regional in the 300 Intermediate Hurdles from freshman Travis Cowan, who finished third behind Brown, and in the field events from Christian Johnson (second in the high jump), Jarrell Brooker (third in the long jump) and Nick Anderson (third in the pole vault). The Cougars also got a post-regional bonus when their 3200 Meter Relay squad (Keith Burris, Cale Prince, Justin Todd and Matt Smith) — which finished fourth Saturday — qualified for state as the fourth-place finisher with the best time from all four of the regionals combined in their event.

Elliott said points from some of his role players will be important this week, but he said his leaders — Daniels, Robert, Brown and the sprint and mile relay squad — are probably the key to a run at the title. Sophomore Keeslar Stover joins Daniels, Roberts and Brown at the shorter distance, and Cowan completes the quartet in the mile relay.

“The relays are the most important thing because you get double points,” Elliott explained. “It’s just hard to tell how much (wiggle) room we have this week, because you never know what’s going to happen.

“We would be near the top (of 5A) in the sprint relay, but other teams have run our times or better,” he said. “Tulsa East Central has the best time in the sprint relay this year, but if we go out and run like we did last week, we certainly have a chance to be right there.”

        

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