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THS boys grab third at Perry

By Eric Sorrentino - | Oct 17, 2007

? Matt Brock was his own worst critic after Thursday’s Kaw Valley League meet at Perry Lake.

The junior finished with the best individual THS boys or girls place of the day. He finished in fourth place individually and helped the boys team place third in the league.

Brock wanted more.

“The kid who won from Lansing (sophomore Brandon Craig) only beat me by like half a second the last time I raced him,” Brock said. “Then, I’ve beaten the (Bishop) Ward kid (senior Jacob McMillian) this year (at the Rim Rock Invitational), so I didn’t feel I did very well.”

Craig won the 5K race with a time of 16 minutes, 38 seconds. McMillian clocked a 16:44. Bonner Springs sophomore Brooks Ballou finished at 16:50 for third place. Brock then ended his day at 17:07.

“About the first mile, they started pulling away from me,” Brock said. “I wish I would have stayed with them longer. I usually have a pretty good kick my last mile, but they got too far ahead of me and I couldn’t really catch up.”

On a positive note for the Chieftains, junior David Powell placed 14th with a time of 18:00.

The rest of the THS herd included junior Dalton Lawson (16th place, 18:01), freshman Justin Soetaert (19th place, 18:16), senior Patrick Holton (31st place, 18:41), freshman Joel Dunning (33rd place, 18:47) and junior Tommy Heskett (39th place, 19:23).

“As a team, I thought we ran the best race we’ve ran all year,” THS coach Phil Williams said. “We’ve always had a big gap between David all year. They made up their mind to close that up.”

Soetaert finished with the second-best time for a freshman in the varsity race. Williams gave him a pep talk Thursday before he ran.

“Justin’s a tough little kid,” Williams said. “I think the last few races, he’s started too far back. He’d have a big kick at the end, but he still hadn’t gotten very close to David. I told him to start out a little faster today. He did, then he still had a pretty good kick and he did really well.”

The boys team will compete in regionals Saturday in Ottawa.