AUSTIN – Years and years of building has finally paid off for the Canyon Eagles boys track program.
Coming so close the past two seasons, the Eagle put it all together with a complete team effort from start to finish that lasted almost 12 hours Thursday to win the programs first ever UIL Class 4A state track and field championship at Mike A. Myers Stadium.
“This group of guys have been working for this moment for the past four years,” Canyon head track coach Cade Wartes said. “They are a great group of guys that do the right things. They all believe in each other, and they bought into the idea of winning a state track meet.”
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The Eagles – who scored 57 points, which was 13 points better than Austin Johnson’s second place 44 points – soar into rare air with this monumental victory in a multitude of ways. Canyon made it a clean sweep alongside the Lady Eagles who won the Co-UIL Class 4A girls state championship Thursday night. The Canyon track and cross country programs also accomplished quite the feat with the boys and girls both winning cross country state championships in the fall.
“We’re in a spot where we all keep working forward,” Canyon head cross country coach and long distance track coach Wes Kirton said. “You have everyone buying in together and it’s awesome to see.”
After a fourth place finish two years ago, and a fifth place team tally last year, Canyon started Thursday focused in the opening race. The dynamic duo of Domenic San Miguel and Noah Cooper gathered 16 quick points in the 3200-meter and made quite the statement. In this two-mile event, San Miguel put on quite the show, setting a new Class 4A meet record in the event with an eye-popping time of 9:04.51.
“It was awesome and it blew my expectations out of the water,” San Miguel said. “It just shows me that whatever goal I have I can achieve more and the bar just gets higher. This was an awesome day. We came up short as a team last year and we all wanted this.”
Cooper took third for a bronze in the 3200-meter which helped immensely with a clutch six points.
“We did exactly what we hoped,” Cooper said. “Our goal was to come out and get big points and we did that. We were wanting a team state title and we achieved that goal.”
Early in the afternoon, it was the field events making key marks for Canyon. Veteran and senior Kelton Burgoon along with freshman Colt McKinley doubled the Eagles points at 32 with gold and a bronze during a very exciting discus event. Burgoon led through the four throws after a toss of 182-8 on his second attempt. With what looked like a gold in the bag, Pampa’s Parker Webb launched a personal-best of 183-4 on his fifth attempt taking a brief lead.
Now sitting in second, Burgoon had to dig deep. On his next to last throw of his high school career, Burgoon uncorked a toss of 188-7 which immediately gave him the lead back and won him the gold medal.
“I heard the cheering and waited to hear them announce Parker’s throw,” Burgoon said. “Even with the 182 I had, I never had the mindset I won. He had me by a foot, and then I said a quick prayer for patience, and I was able to stay calm and respond. This was an awesome way to end my high school career. I threw over 200-feet early in the year and then I’ve been in the trenches ever since. I was able to trust God’s process and not mine and that helped me succeed.”
Another huge six points came in the form of McKinley. The freshman stepped up on the big stage with a bronze medal performance. McKinley tossed out a throw of 166-4 on his second attempt that was good enough to get him a bronze.
“It was huge for Kelton and I to get 16 points,” Mckinley said. Our throwing coach (Matt) Spears does such a great job working with us and this was a great opportunity. I had some nerves but I got used to it. This meant a lot to medal and it helped my team and that’s all we wanted to do.”
Now came the evening and the running events. Canyon’s Emmitt Stewart won bronze in the 400-meter (48.30) and San Miguel along with Cooper went fifth and sixth in the 1600-meter event, putting Canyon at 41 points entering the mile relay. That was three points behind Austin Johnson for the championship. With Austin Johnson already done, all the Eagles mile relay had to do was get no worse than fourth.
However, the fearsome foursome of Nolan Prock, Jacob Asbill, Baylor West and Emmitt Stewart, set a new team-best time of 3:16.04 to put a bow on the state title with a final 16 points which put the meet far out of reach.
“This is great,” Stewart said. “All the training and the hard work all the guys put in has paid off. We just want to thank the coaches. We won a cross country title and now a track title. It’s just been an amazing season for our running program.”
Asbill echoed Stewart’s comment.
“It’s awesome,” Asbill said. “We made it to state last year and we knew we came up short. This was a team effort and we’re happy that our long distance guys and field guys are great. But as for us, we had a personal-best by over two seconds. It was just an amazing day.”
Check out the results
For a look at the complete results from Thursday’s UIL Class 4A-3A state track and field meet, please visit https://www.milesplit.live/meets/746342/schedule