Hays Lemley, however, totally meant it Thursday night when he began talking about his Van Buren boys track team, just moments after the Pointers had captured the first state championship in that sport in school history during the Class 5A Track and Field Championships.
It's because Van Buren earned contributions from a number of athletes in order to complete the task in order to edge Mountain Home by a 74-73 margin that came down to the meet's final event.
"We had some guys that really stepped up," Lemley said. "It's theirs. They won it.
"If you have a track meet that comes down to the 4x400 (meter) relay and you have an opportunity to be in it, that's big. It's never happened to us, and I'm glad to have the chance to make that happen."
Van Buren entered the 4x400 with a 69-67 advantage over Mountain Home, meaning the Pointers had a very slight margin of error. The team of Phillip Steele, Kyle Byford, Lucas Aguilera and Daymon Mays needed to stay on the Bombers' heels and not let anybody else get between them at the same time.
Van Buren pulled it off, but with not a lot of room to spare. Mountain Home finished third with its time of 3:27.72, right behind second-place Sylvan Hills, but Van Buren was next at 3:28.20, less than a second ahead of fifth-place Little Rock Parkview.
"All those points mattered," Lemley said. "When it comes down to one point determining your winner, every point scored by a Van Buren athlete mattered."
Van Buren won three events in the meet, starting with the 4x200 relay as the team of Talen Jones, Grant Olds, Toray Wilford and Micah Hendrickson finished in 1:27.10. Hendrickson, however, suffered a hamstring injury and was not able to run again.
Mays then replaced Hendrickson and teamed with Jones, Grant Olds and Wilford to win the 4x100 with a school-record time of 41.81 seconds, just .08 ahead of Texarkana. Olds then had the Pointers' other first-place finish when he won the 200 in 21.85 seconds.
After that, everything else fell the way Van Buren needed it to do.
"There were lots of points that were scored throughout the day that people miss," Lemley said. "For instance, Eli Adams getting second in the 3,200 and running well in the 1,60... Click here to read full article
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