FORTVILLE — As he came out of the final turn, it looked like this might be the last 400-meter race of Hunter Loller’s high school career. The Madison County champ was running in fourth place and running out of time.
But Loller had something the three frontrunners did not seem to have.
Something left to give.
Loller overtook the three runners, pulling ahead at the finish line to claim the 400 sectional championship; he is one of two Bulldogs athletes guaranteed a spot in the regional at North Central High School set for 6 p.m. today, Thursday, May 25.
Loller completed his run in 50.98 seconds, .13 ahead of DeAngelo Mason from Lawrence North; just .56 seconds separated the top four finishers. Loller said he could tell the other runners were running out of gas a bit more quickly than he was.
“It wasn’t that I kicked — it was that they slowed down more than I did,” he said. “At first, I thought it was over; I didn’t give up and I didn’t slow down at all. If anything, they slowed down, and the more they slowed down, the more it energized me. When I passed Elijah (Merida of Anderson), I knew I could catch the Lawrence North guys.”
Merida finished fourth, while DeAngelo Mason and Jamie Thomas of Lawrence North placed second and third.
After he crossed the finish line, Loller was bent at the waist with his head in his hands, overcome with the emotions of the final straightaway.
“Within 14 seconds, I was thinking ‘I’m not going to regionals at all’ to being a sectional champion,” he said. “My muscles were running out of oxygen and so was my brain. All I could think was, ‘Oh my God, I did it.’”
“It was all determination,” Lapel coach Brian Williams said. “He really stayed within himself. He usually starts faster, but tonight he started slower. Tonight, it payed off that last 150 meters when everyone else started fading.”
Lapel girls track coach and Hunter’s mother, Krista Loller, said the final half-lap brought a flurry of emotions.
“At that point, I was just praying for a top-three,” she said. “When he finished, I was in such shock, I said, ‘Did he just win? Did I just see that?’”
The second Bulldog to automatically qualify came from the field events; senior Dawson Ayers placed second in the long jump with a leap of 21 feet, 5.5 inches. He was kept out of the top spot when Tyneilus Morrow from Anderson broke the sectional record with a jump of 22-1.5.
“It was probably his best series of jumps from first to last that he’s had all year,” Williams said of Ayers. “He’s in a really good place.”
A third Lapel athlete is in good position to advance based on his time comparison to other statewide competitors. Freshman Luke Combs placed fourth in the 1,600, just three seconds out of third place and an automatic advancement. Williams said he’s confident Combs will head to regional.
“Looks like what we’ve heard out of Indianapolis that he’s going to go as well,” Williams said.
The Bulldogs placed fifth overall, another pleasant surprise for Williams.
“That was probably as surprising as some of the performances,” he said. “It was a really, really good day.”