Keegan finds a way to go out a winner again
By Steve Williams
Keegan Smith came into his final Knoxville Interscholastic Meet last week wanting to top off his career winning streak in the 800-meter run, but lost to Farragut senior Evan Beeler by two-tenths of a second.
Disappointed that he didn’t get win No. 4 in the KIL 800, the Knoxville Catholic standout still left Hardin Valley Academy as a record-setting winner Tuesday night after coming from behind to edge Farragut senior Tanner Coggin by fifteen-hundredths of a second in the 3200.
Coggin jumped out to a big lead early and maintained it for most of the race with Smith far back in second place.
Keegan said he used the scoreboard clock to let him know how much distance he needed to make up and it was showing “three seconds” after laps 4 through 7.
“I found something in the last 100 meters,” recalled Smith, “but Tanner responded very well. I thought maybe I wasn’t going to get him, but I prevailed at the end so I’m just super blessed and thankful to bounce back so quickly after a disappointing 800.
“I wanted to four-peat,” added Keegan. “That’s been circled on the calendar this whole senior year and when that didn’t go my way, I was pretty bummed right afterwards.”
Smith said his coaches encouraged him to ‘flip the page and get ready’ for the next race.
“To end it with that win and the way I came back and fought the whole time, it means a lot and there’s no better way to end a good long streak with KIL both in track and cross-country,” said Keegan, who won the KIL Cross Country Meet four straight years.
Smith, a Colorado signee, set a new KIL meet record in the 3200 with a time of 9:15.68.
Coggin’s time was 9:15.83 and Bearden’s Cade Crum took third at 9:33.90.
There were other special storylines that came from the boys’ meet.
The team title was up for grabs in the final event, the 4×400 relay. Hardin Valley placed second in the race to earn eight points and had the winning score of 101. Catholic finished third in the race and ended up second in the team standings with 100.5 points. Farragut won the final event and totaled 99 points for third place in the team scoring.
The Top 5 finishers also included Gibbs (74 points) in fourth place. Central and West tied for fifth with 51 points.
There were two double winners in the KIL individual events. Austin-East senior Myles Crayton sped to victories in the 200 (21.90) and 400 (48.64). He also placed third in the 100.
JR Fowler, Catholic junior, swept the throw events with a 182-9 in the discus and a 59-6¼ in the shot put.
Hardin Valley sophomore Nicolas Rivers won the 100-meter dash in 10.95. Javaston Badgett of Central was second in 10.98.
Farragut’s Beeler posted a KIL meet record time of 1:52.41 in the 800 in his win over Smith. Karns’ Rylan Moser-Bryan was third.
The closest race in the boys’ meet was HVA senior Gabe Allen clocking in with a 4:16.44 in the 1600 and teammate Garrett Hawkins finishing in 4:16.45 one-hundredth of a second behind. Bearden’s Crum came in at 4:18.16.
CAK senior Silas Fulford set a new KIL meet record in the 110 hurdles in 14.69. Four hurdlers – Farragut’s Chase McAvoy, Gibbs’ Milo Willets, Halls’ Brody Foster and Farragut’s Dane Skinner – finished between 15.30 and 15.93.
In the 300 hurdles, Willets, a senior, won in 38.79. Fulford was second and Skinner third.
In the relay events, Catholic set a KIL meet record in the 4×800 with a time 8:03.33. Members of the Irish quartet were Gonzalo Vela, Graham Karnes, Tony Ortega and Reid Bannister. Karns came in second and Farragut third.
Central continued to win with its 4×100 relay. Caleb Harris, Eric Moore, Niko Townsend and Javaston Badgett combined for a time of 42.42, just one-tenth of a second off the KIL meet record of 42.32.
Carter’s 4×200 relay took first place with a time of 1:30.25. Lawson Branch ran the leadoff leg, followed by Jackson Stuffle, Caleb Chittum and anchorman Asisah Burton. Gibbs came in second at 1:30.37.
Farragut’s 4×400 wrapped up the meet with its victory time of 3:24.79. Aaron Pohl, Lucas Spadafora, Willy Brunet and Beeler carried the baton.
A lot of attention was on the high jump to see if Larry Clapp’s oldest KIL meet record of 6-7 would hold up another year and it did. Chase McAvoy of Farragut and John Caldwell of Gibbs cleared 6-2 and McAvoy took first place honors as he didn’t have any misses at lower heights, while Caldwell had one miss. Catholic’s George Mancini and Halls’ Domarian Noe tied for third at 6-0.
Halls’ Noe prevailed in the long jump with a leap of 20-8½. Will Sharbel of West was a close second at 20-8 and HVA’s Colson Crutch placed third.
Crutch took top honors for Hardin Valley in the triple jump with a mark of 40-8¾. Gibbs’ Caldwell came in second at 40-4 and teammate Chris Puryear was third.
Bearden senior Gavin Bailey won the pole vault event at 14-6. Halls’ Brody Foster was runner-up at 14-0 and CAK’s Fulford came in third.
Farragut’s Bryce Thompson took second place in the discus with a throw of 177-3.
HVA’s Neal Henley was second in the shot put with a toss of 46-1. Gibbs’ Seth Seiber finished third.
