There are two hurdles races in high school track and field meets.
Jackson County Central is sending an entry to the state meet in each of them.
Junior Ridge VanWesten won the 300-meter hurdles title at the Section 3A meet, while senior Trevin Gaustad was second in the 110-meter hurdles.
They'll both compete in the state Class A meet next Friday at St. Michael-Albertville High School.
VanWesten was able to overcome some tough moments to win the 300-meter hurdles event.
"I was really nervous at the beginning," he said. "I went over the first hurdle all right. The second hurdle was all right too, but the third hurdle I messed up. I stumbled super bad but I recovered really fast. I knew I could sprint a little bit to catch up because I know my endurance. I have pretty good endurance. I'm a mid-distance runner. I kept stumbling, but my rage kept me going. I was like, 'I have to make it. We got this.'
VanWesten would win the race in 42.14 seconds, with Yellow Medicine East's Silas Whitebuffalo second in 42.22. Aiden Voss of Pipestone would also go under the 43-second mark as he was third in 42.36. Only the top two place winners advance to state.
"I got to the last set of hurdles and I think we all three hit the hurdle and stumbled but I recovered the fastest and just got up and go, "VanWesten commented. "It was so close. We all stumbled at the end, but we were just sprinting all the way. We were going as fast as we possibly could because sections are a big meet. We want to go to state. All of us do, but not everyone gets to go."
VanWesten said maintaining breathing is a key in the hurdles race.
"It's not like the 400 meters, but going over those hurdles takes all your breath away," he said. "If you mess up, you're like 'aw crap, I gotta get back up there.' You really have to focus on breathing. You have to keep the same pace all the way through. You can't really slow down. If you too fast, you're going to burn out."
With the top three finishers hitting the line within .22 of each other, it was loud in the grandstand at the Inglis Track & Field complex as the runners neared the finish line. Not that Ridge was really aware of that.
"You don't even hear people," he said. "People say 'I was shouting at you, but I don't hear them. When I stumbled over a hurdle, people said 'you said something' but I don't even hear myself when I'm running like that. People are shouting at me but I don't even know what they're saying."
Earlier in the day, Gaustad made it to the state meet in the 110 hurdles with his runner-up finish.
He'd run on the same track in the sub-section meet a week earlier and that hadn't gone as well, so Trevin was anxious to make up for that.
"Last week I think I ran one of my worst hurdles of the year," he said. "So coming in today I was pretty dead set on doing better than I did last week and beating the guy who beat me. I went out and I did it and I'm on my way to state. It's pretty exciting."
That race was close at the end as well, so it was tough to sort out the order of the runners for sure.
"To be honest, at the end I wasn't really too sure of what place I got because right when I leaned over the finish line I looked down the line and we were all pretty close," he said. "People were congratulating me as I was walking on the infield, but I didn't let myself get a full head. I was like 'well, we don't know yet' so I made sure I waited until the announcer said who was going to state before I let myself get excited."
Pipestone's Voss was the winner in 16.18 seconds, with Gaustad second in 16.27. YME's Whitebuffalo was third (16.34) and Colter Johnson of BOLD/Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart fourth (16.45).
And his reaction when he heard his season was going to go for another week?
"I felt fantastic. It was awesome," Gaustad said. "That was probably one of the best feelings I've had in my life. I've been working for this since my freshman year."
Of course, Gaustad didn't have an opportunity to compete as a junior because the season was canceled.
"It's awesome to get to experience my senior year," Trevin said. "I felt so bad for the guys last year like Matthew Stubbe and my friends from other teams that didn't get a chance to compete, so it's a blessing that I got a chance to come out here and experience this year in track with such a great team."
He competed in four events at the section meet. He anchored the 4x200-meter relay team that placed second, was fourth in long jump and fifth in triple jump."
"All my other events went all right," he said. The 4x2 went good. The jumps not so well but I only used that as motivation to push me in the 110s and the 4x2 so in a way not doing as well in those events helped me in the one that meant the most to me."
A complete list of JCC results at the Section 3A meet appeared in a separate newsletter.