Division 1 state track: East Lansing's dynamite relay, Holt's Kellen Reed, Grand Ledge's Adam Blue leave their mark

ROCKFORD – Holt’s Kellen Reed finished the slowest 200-meter race of his life Saturday — 2 minutes and 13.64 seconds. It wasn’t what he imagined for the final race of his high school career, on the biggest stage possible, the Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 1 Track and Field Finals.

But Reed finished. And the smile he’d lost earlier returned as he hobbled across the line to cheers from the crowd at Rockford High School.

Reed’s day had been derailed by a hamstring injury he suffered about two-thirds of the way through the 100-meter dash. He was already a tad disappointed in his second-place finish in the long jump, though he admitted “state runner-up isn’t too bad.”

His idea in the 200 …

“Just to finish,” he said. “Because I feel like I earned it.”

Reed’s tough afternoon and inspiring finish was among the highlights and lowlights on a day of what-might-have-beens, almosts, injuries, and a few satisfying results for Lansing area athletes at the Division 1 boys and girls track and field meets in Rockford. No area school was close to contention for the team titles, won by the Detroit Renaissance girls (80 points) and U of D Jesuit boys (41 points).

The East Lansing boys tied for 15th with 15 points — with many of those points coming by way of an incredible, near-state-title-winning performance by the Trojans’ 4x200 relay team. Holt was next, tied for 24th place, with 12 points, followed by Grand Ledge (32nd, eight points), Waverly (50th, three points) and Okemos (62nd, 1.5 points).

On the girls side locally, East Lansing tied for 16th with nine points, followed by Grand Ledge in 44th with three points, and Holt and DeWitt among those tied for 53rd with a point apiece.

Reed’s careful walk across the finish line earned one of Holt’s points. As did his eighth-place finish in the 100, when the injury to his right hamstring occurred, hours after he ran it in 10.95 seconds in the prelims.

“I knew the second it happened,” said Reed, who had a similar injury at this meet a year ago, to his left hamstring. “I ran through it last year and finished the race, but I knew I should just stop (running) instead of making it worse. Just so the healing process will be a little bit shorter.”

It took about eight weeks last year, he said.

He nearly already had a state title Saturday. He led the long jump until the final round of leaps, when Muskegon Mona Shores’ Demitri Roberson jumped 23 feet, 6.75 inches, besting Reed’s 22-07.75.

“I just kept jumping just behind the board or an inch on the board,” Reed said. “I just couldn’t nail my mark.”

East Lansing’s 4x200 relay team nearly won a state title Saturday from an unlikely position — the middle heat. In Michigan, because the MHSAA state track and field meet is a one-day event, not all of the finals have preliminary races. That includes the relays, meaning there are multiple heats in the some of the afternoon finals. In the 4x200, East Lansing’s slower regional meet qualifying time meant the Trojans were in second-fastest heat. But, this week, they got their fast four sprinters together healthy for the first time all season — and it showed.

The team of Dorijan Jackson, Malichi Barendelli, Temilolaoluwa Okabanjo and Donovan Patterson blew away the competition in their heat, posting a time of 128.29 seconds.

“We trusted each other and we got it done,” Jackson said.

In the supposed faster final heat, only U of D Jesuit beat them with a time of 128.06.

Had East Lansing been racing against their competition instead of the clock, all four of the Trojans' relay runners agreed they might have won the state title.

“I told Dorijan, catch the guy in Lane 7 and then, after that, Malichi, you're going to get the lead,” their coach, Octavis Long, said. “And after that, we're not going to see anyone, just ourselves. Just run for time. That's exactly what happened. Great effort.”

Another great effort came from Grand Ledge senior Adam Blue, who took second in the pole vault after suffering an avulsion fracture his growth plate in his hip during a meet in late March. Barely two months later, he was vaulting 15 feet, 6 inches Saturday, bested only by Temperance Bedford’s Ethan Lingle at 15-9.

Blue only got clearance to start vaulting again four weeks ago.

“It’s amazing that he was able to come back and do that and just mentally believe that ‘Hey, I can make this happen,’ ” Grand Ledge coach Fred Hutchinson said.

Not only did Blue have to battle any nerves from the injury, but he was trying to avoid his mistakes from a year ago, when he made it this far and then no-heighted at the state meet.

“I was amped up (last year) and the nerves were going and I kind of just lost myself,” Blue said. “But this year I was used to it. It just felt like any other meet really. … I obviously want to win it, but, you know, I can't be mad at second place with how long I was out for an injury.”

Like, with Reed, a hamstring injury ruined the day for the area’s top girls star, East Lansing senior Comari Hawkins, who came up limping after the 100-meter race and was scratched from the 200. She did, however, anchor the Trojans’ third-place 4x200 relay team earlier, which finished in 1:41.57, a bit off the pace of first-place Detroit Renaissance (1:38.09). That East Lansing relay team also featured sophomore Janell Brown, senior Corinne Jones and sophomore Aarianna Burtley. The foursome had the only top-three finish by a Lansing-area team in the girls meet.

Graham Couch can be reached at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: MHSAA Division 1 state track: East Lansing relay, Holt's Kellen Reed and Grand Ledge's Adam Blue leave their mark