This article was written by Taggart Schrader, a sophomore student in the journalism class at U-32 in admiration for Eddie and the State Champs: U-32 track team.
Sophomore Eddie Sayers was only slotted to score 1 point at the DII state championship track and field meet at BHS on Friday, June 3rd. But Sayers headed into the meet with the thought “I can hopefully bring in a few points at states.”
“Most people don’t know this is my first season in Track and Field,” Sayers said. Before this year he had only played football in high school.
He improved significantly throughout the whole season, reaching new personal records in almost every meet. Soon enough he got to the point where he could be competitive at states.
The U-32 boys’ team had one main rival at the meet (Peoples Academy) which was predicted to be within a few points of U-32. As the day went on it proceeded to be exactly that, with both teams gaining more points each event. In the end, U-32 triumphed over Peoples by 2.5 points. (U-32: 104, Peoples: 101.5)
Eddie knew he would probably PR (personal record) in the shot, but in the pole vault and high jump, he wasn’t so sure. He started the meet with a 10th-place finish in the pole vault and felt he could have done much better. Then he made his way up to 3rd in the shot put, getting a 2ft PR.
In the high jump, the starting height was 5ft 4inches and most people didn’t make it above that. Eddie cleared the first bar and then cleared the next one 2 inches higher.
“It was mostly just luck,” he said “I thought I would be lower in the standing when it was going on.”
The U-32 boys’ team was missing one of their biggest scorers and would have lost on paper. But Sayers scored 10 points, outperforming his predicted score by 9. He got 3rd in the shot put and 4th in the high jump. Without those crucial points, the U-32 boys would have lost.
Eddie has started summer training for next season and is excited to be one of the top shot-put performers in the state.
