Younger Runners Show Great Things Ahead for Alton's Boys Track and Field Squad

EDWARDSVILLE – Although the Alton boys track and field team only scored 10 points in the Southwestern Illinois Relays Friday afternoon at Edwardsville’s Winston Brown Track and Field Center, the Redbirds performed very well with a team made up of mainly freshmen and sophomores who gained valuable experience.

“Well, we came into this meet resting a few of our top guys,” said Alton head coach Jeff White, “because they have the Illinois Top Times indoor championships tomorrow (in Bloomington-Normal), but we did run them in our four by (100), and they looked really good in there. Unfortunately, we didn’t finish the race on the last leg, but you know, it’s still early in the year, and we know we’re going to be good on that race. We’ve just kind of got to clean that one up a little bit. Our four by (200 meter) though, we thought we ran that pretty well with the group we had in there. Otherwise, today, we were running a lot of our freshman and sophomore runners, and we think even if they didn’t score a lot of points today, they ran their hearts out today, and you know, they’re our future, and they’ve got to get out there and get that experience.”

The younger runners did perform well, which is a very good sign for this season and beyond for Alton.

“Yeah, I mean, we want them to do well,” White said. “And you know, we had some other guys too that came out and ran. Trey Miller, who’s a junior, he ran really well in the sprint medley and the four-by-two, and he did really well in the long jump, so we’re really happy with him, and I think he’ll be an important part of our depth for us. And we had another sophomore, Devon Miller, who set a personal record in the triple jump; he went 36’ 5”. We think he’s going to be a really good jumper by the end of this season. So we definitely have some pretty good potential there, and we’ve got some good things to build on from today.”

Overall, the Redbirds’ outlook is very promising for the new season ahead.

“Oh, yeah. We definitely have a lot of speed,” White said. “I think that’s really noticeable throughout the indoor season, and we’re pretty excited next week for the O’Fallon Relays. Finally put the indoor season behind us and bring out those guys and show everyone what we have. It’s going to be a good year for us, for sure.”

The sprint medley relay team of Dondre Davis, Kavontay Samelton-Danser, Trey Miller and Gerald Bruce finished seventh with a time of 3:55.11, while Samelton-Danser was eighth in the 300-meter hurdles, coming in at 45.31 seconds. The 4x200-meter relay team of Davis, Kegan Bratton, Tim Johnson and Miller finished sixth with a time of 1:35.61, while in the field events, Trey Miller was eighth in the long jump with at 18’ 8.75”, while Devon Miller’s distance in the triple jump placed him 10^th.

Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.

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