Track VS Northridge & Goshen // Senior Night

 Melayna's senior night for track season was on Tuesday, April 28th.  

When Noel and I came home after small group last weekend, we found Melayna at the dining table making her senior poster.  She had gone to Walgreens to get all of her pictures printed earlier in the evening and she was frantically trying to get them all glued on so that her poster would be finished in time for the senior celebration.

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On Tuesday night, all of the seniors would be recognized before the meet began.  If any of the girls were planning to run in college, they were asked to wear shirts representing the college where they had committed.  

Nolan and I arrived at the track around 4:40 and we were able to walk over and find Melayna's senior banner on display.  Then Nolan followed my parents up to the stands to sit down and I headed over to the concession stand to find Melayna and to check out her poster, that she had finally finished the night before.  

As soon as all of the girls were there and ready, the parents were asked to line up all together and then each girl was called out one at a time to walk through a tunnel formed by their teammates and to walk down to the center of the track.  As we were walking, the announcer read the name of the athlete along with her parents' names and then he announced their future plans along with any message that the girls wanted to pass along to their parents.  It was really difficult to hear what the announcer was saying as we were walking out, but I do remember that Melayna had written that she was thanking Noel and I for all of the support that we had given to her over the years and how much she loved us.  She ended her appreciation post by asking if she could go to Panda Express after the meet with her friends. LOL  That made the announcer laugh out loud and Noel and I weren't surprised at all because that is definitely her most common request.

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With all of the senior recognition now complete, the meet was set to start.  Once again, Melayna would run in the 100 hurdles, the 300 hurdles and then the 4x400 relay.

She went to the line and got ready for the 100 hurdles.  She would be running in lane #5 and in this picture, she is still wearing her long black pants as there was a long delay between the JV and Varsity races due to some timing system issues.

And finally.  They were ready to go.  Or so we thought.  The gun went off and Melayna got the best start of her life!  She easily three stepped the first two hurdles and then after the third hurdle, she landed back on her hips too far and that made her clip the next hurdle and she skidded to the ground.  (Yes, I'm actually recording her fall here because it does happen).   I was so shocked as I watched her fall to the ground, (in slow motion it seemed) and then I was really confused when people starting yelling at the runners to stop and the official shot the gun again and they were actually called back.  What was going on?  It's certainly not standard practice to stop a race just because someone falls

In the video, aside from Melayna skidding to a stop on the track, you can actually see that the official wasn't even watching the race as he was looking at the scoreboard.  He just happened to notice that the clock wasn't running at the same point that Melayna fell and he shot the gun to stop the race.  (Definitely was a lucky break for Melayna as she would be able to come back and run the race again).  It took the timers a few minutes to reset the timing system and get it going again, but that also gave the girls time to put their warm-ups back on to stay warm, and it gave Melayna a few minutes to gather herself mentally and to get ready to race again.

This time she would run a clean race but I could see that she was definitely more reserved.   Somehow, despite running with more caution, she still managed to place 2nd in the race and she ran a new season's best time of 16.91, and that is her second fastest time ever!!  'Not a bad way to regroup and come back after a painful (and embarrassing) fall.

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Thankfully, except for a scraped knee and a lost acrylic fingernail, there wasn't any lasting damage and she laughed it off with her head coach before grabbing her gear and going back to get ready for the 300 hurdles.

Unfortunately, I thought that I was taking a video of her 300 race but after she crossed the finish line, I realized that I had actually taken a photo of the start and then another picture at the finish.  Oops!  Thankfully Melayna ran better than I did videoing and she would finish first in this race with a 49.69.

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At the end of the night, Melayna was scheduled to run in the JV 4x400 relay.  She was getting warmed up and ready for that race when she got word that she would be moved back up to the varsity race and would run in the 3rd spot on the relay.

Unfortunately for our Lady Tigers, despite everyone on the team running 62 seconds or less, the Goshen team was just crazy fast... They have two of the fastest 400 runners in the state of Indiana and they finished under 4 minutes!!  We ran well, but we simply weren't catching them!!  With that said, Laynie did run another 1:02 and the team finished with a 4:08 and a second place.  

I started the video as the 2nd runner came running down the homestretch and handed off to Melayna.

The Lady Tigers would pick up two more conference wins on the night and then the team decided to do something fun by ending out the night with a exhibition relay against the coaches.  Noel would run the 2nd leg of a 4x100 relay against a couple of Warsaw teams.  Once again I failed to get a video and pushed the button at the start and the finish of the relay.  Oh well... trust me when I said that Noel is also super quick and he put our team into first place, but then the next two runners lost the lead on the homestretch and finished in 3rd place overall.  Everyone was smiling at the end though so I guess that's what counts.