This article was written by Track Reporter Michael Newman of Dye Stat; he took the team photo. The press release was submitted by Sammy Biggs.
Morrison High School Boys Track does not have an indoor season. They had jumped into a couple of meets before the Illinois Top Times Championships in Bloomington, IL, on Friday, March 22, 2019. None of the athletes on the team ran in individual events in the two meets [where] they competed. They just competed in relays.
Morrison had fun on Friday evening sweeping all three relay events contested in this meet. Juniors Nick Allen, Nathan Mickley, Keegan Anderson, and Koby Brackemeyer ran on the winning 3200 Meter Relay and 800 Meter Relay. Freshman Hunter Newman replaced Allen in their winning 1600 Meter Relay.
Five athletes. Three wins. It is an incredible accomplishment! No team has won all three relays in the history of this meet let alone with only five athletes!
“We really did not back off for this meet. We trained right through it,” Brackemeyer said. “[Thursday] we did stadiums (running up steps) and then [ran] 200’s on the track.”
Shown left-to-right are MHS Boys Track Coach Tim Duncan; Nick Allen; Koby Brackemeyer; Nathan Mickley; Hunter Newman; Keegan Anderson; Boys Track Coach Sammy Biggs.
Morrison was seeded tenth in this 12-team field in the 3200 Meter Relay. It did not look good for them early on, as Nick Allen handed off the baton in eighth-place. Nathan Mickley moved the team up to fifth-place on the second leg. The third leg was the momentum changer, as Keegan Anderson ran a 2:00 split for his 800, to move Morrison to the lead. Koby Brackemeyer ran his anchor split in 2:01.5 to give his team the win (8:16.57.) Tremont (8:21.76) and Pleasant Plains (8:24.97), who traded off the lead early in the race, finished second and third[, respectively].
It was the same quartet in the 800 Meter Relay with a different order. The name of the game in this indoor relay is getting the lead and holding it.
Morrison used Anderson as their lead-off man. He was All-State last spring in the 400 Meter Dash. He got Morrison the lead with a 22.9 opening split. Brackemeyer followed with 23.7, Mickley with 23.6, and Allen brought home the win (24.2.) Morrison won (1:34.43) by more than a second ahead of St. Joseph-Ogden (1:35.86), while DuQuoin from Section 3 finished third (1:36.08.)