Temple’s Tevin Reese set a school record in winning the boys long jump and Belton’s Regan Tindell captured the gold medal in the girls 3,200-meter run Thursday at Wildcat Stadium.
Reese is one of three Temple athletes who qualified for the 5A Region II meet, and Tindell is part of a Belton trio that punched its regional ticket.
But one Wildcat who many expected to be a shoo-in for regional won’t be at Baylor’s Hart-Patterson Track Complex in Waco on April 25-26 - at least not in an individual event.
Temple sophomore Lache Seastrunk, the defending district champion in the boys 100 and this year’s state leader with a time of 10.35 seconds, was disqualified for a false start during the preliminaries and won’t run in today’s final.
“It’s a lesson to be learned,” Temple boys coach Wayne Ransleben said. “But when Lache was out for three meets with an injury, we still performed well. We won’t have him in the 100, but we’ll still have him in the (400 relay).”
Also earning a regional berth - the top three finishers in each event advance - were Temple long jumper Daniel Carr and Belton pole vaulter Jose Cerna on the boys side. In the girls competition, Temple’s Lacee Slaughter advanced in the discus throw, as did Belton’s Myca San Miguel in the triple jump.
The three remaining field events and running finals will be held today.
Reese and Carr got the Wildcats off to a soaring start in the day’s first event with a pair of medals and a school record to boot.
Carr, who had been bumped from the third spot midway through the final round, uncorked a leap of 21 feet, 10¼ inches on his final attempt to the claim the bronze before Reese took his last try.
After bettering his mark twice to keep the lead through the preliminary round, Reese floated 23-1½ to match the leap of Bryan’s Jaron Gentry and grab the gold by virtue of a better second jump.
Reese, a junior who also qualified first for the 300 hurdles final and will be favored in today’s triple jump event, broke the school of record 23-1 that was set by Horace Tisdale in 1992.
“The school record doesn’t mean that much to me,” Reese said. “I’m just focused on trying to get through regionals. To get there, I knew I had to go get it on my last attempt.”
Added Carr: “I knew I had it in me. It feels good to be going to regionals.”
Cerna earned his way to the regional meet with a silver-medal showing in the pole vault. He matched his personal best of 12-6 to finish second behind Bryan’s Robert Robinson (13-6).
“I was pretty nervous because the best I had done last year was 11-6,” Cerna said. “But I had cleared 12-6 earlier this year, and I was just hoping I could do it again.”
Slaughter advanced by claiming the bronze in the discus with a heave of 110-9. Harker Heights’ Kapi Browne (116-0) added a gold to the bronze she won last year in the event.
San Miguel leaped 36 feet to finish third in the triple jump, which was won by Heights’ Jasmine Tucker (37-½). San Miguel has chances to advance in two more events today after qualifying second in the 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles.
It was about 30 minutes after San Miguel’s preliminary run in the 100 hurdles that disaster struck Seastrunk.
Lined up in Lane 6 - with only Killeen Shoemaker’s William Beasley on his right - in the first heat of the 100 prelims, Seastrunk broke from the starting blocks ahead of the gun.
Convinced it was another runner who jumped, Seastrunk didn’t leave the starting area until Ransleben walked from the finish line to the start line and picked up the blocks.
“Not to point the finger or anything, I just know I saw another guy shoot out from the right corner of my eye,” said Seastrunk, who will run on the Wildcats’ 400 relay today. “But they caught me a little earlier. I’m just going to make it up on the (relay).”
The remainder of the boys prelims were highlighted by Reese’s run in the 300 hurdles - he was more than a second faster than the rest of the field - and teammate Harry Sheppard’s first-place qualifying run of a personal-best 49.88 in the 400.
The girls prelims were highlighted by San Miguel’s efforts in both hurdles events and the third-place qualifying run of Temple’s Erika Allen in the 300s.
Tindell capped the evening with her methodical gold-medal run in the 3,200 - the only running final of the day.
Tindell grabbed the lead from the gun, comfortably ran the eight laps with College Station A&M Consolidated’s Sally Hays on her hip the whole way and won with a time of 11:19.61.
“If somebody else had gone out early, I would have followed them for a lap or two but it didn’t work out that way,” said Tindell, a sophomore who shaved 25 seconds off of her second-place time from last year.
“I think I’m a smarter runner than I was last year. I understand what kind of race I need to run, and that makes things a lot smoother."
edrennan@temple-telegram.com
