April 21, 2008 01:35 am
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By SCOTT TYLER
H-P Sports Editor
In the past, Palestine track coach Booker Bowie feels his runners have their best times in the last meets of the season.
Bowie hopes that trend continues this year as Palestine prepares for the Class 3A-Region III track and field meet at Humble High School. The preliminaries will be run Friday and the finals will be run Saturday.
“At district we improved on our distances and times and we want to continue to do that next week at regionals,” Bowie said. “The kids have been working real hard.”
The top two finishers in each event at regionals will qualify for the state track meet in Austin.
Bowie said the top goal at regionals is to be in the top eight in the preliminaries and reach the finals Saturday.
“Once you get into the finals, anything can happen,” Bowie said. “There are always surprises on that Saturday, so if we can get as many as possible into the finals, then maybe we can have one of those good surprises.”
Since the end of the district meet, Palestine has spent a lot of time in practice working on handoffs for the relay teams.
Palestine’s 800-meter relay team will have a new look going into regionals as Xavier Davis has been added as the anchor leg. The rest of the 800 relay team is Turner Simmon, Bryan Davis and Darius Simmons.
Davis was part of last year’s 800 relay team which finished second at the state meet.
“It is going to come down to handoffs and who wants it the most,” Bowie said of the 800 relay. “The last 30 meters of that race is going to be a gut check.”
The first time the 800 team ran together was Friday night when Palestine traveled to White Oak for a regional qualifiers meet.
“We just wanted to turn loose because it was a practice meet,” Bowie said of Friday’s meet. “It was our last tune up before regionals.”
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Scott Tyler may be contacted via e-mail at styler@palestineherald.com
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