Boys Track Team Looking Towards District

By LARRY GAGE
Special to the PRESS

Head Port Isabel High boys’ track and field coach Ryan Stannage is still trying to put together something like a full team in time for the District 32-4A meet later this month.

There were no points finishes by anyone on the team at last week’s Meet of Champions at Weslaco.

The Tarpons’ best hope for points and possibly a win or two was hurdler Omar Silva, who has excellent times this season in both the 110-meter and 300-meter hurdles.  He did not run his best in either event at Weslaco as he failed to cleanly get over every hurdle in the two races.

Coach Stanage said this week, “He (Silva) would have been right there with them all because he was right there with them when he stumbled.”

Then there was the 300-meter hurdles; “I mean, if he doesn’t hit that hurdle I have no doubt he wins that race.  It’s just one of those things.”

Silva still ran ninth in the 110 hurdles with a time of 16.31 and had the 14th-best time in the 300’s at 46.14 seconds.

Port Isabel’s only other top-16 finisher was Daniel Gonzalez, who’s clocking of 24.86 seconds was 16th-fastest in the 200-meter dash.  “Daniel Gonzalez (freshman) qualified for the finals in the 200, which was a nice surprise,” Stanage said.  “He ran really well on Friday (in prelims) and got to run on Saturday (finals).  I think he had an eye-opening experience.  It was big-time track and you can’t beat that experience.”

When asked if Omar’s confidence was affected, the coach replied, “Maybe a little. I think what he learned from it was that you can’t worry about everybody else in the race; you’ve got to worry about your race.”

“He’s just going to have to put it behind him and get back on his feet.  Everybody’s had a bad day and my response to him was it’s only a failure if you don’t learn something from it,” Stanage said.

Tarpon shot putter Trey Mock is also playing baseball this spring and has yet to throw the heavy ball this year.  According to Stanage, Mock is supposed to start practicing again this week, but he was not medically cleared for active duty this season until very recently.

“We’re going to put up the best team we can put out there.  We’re going to do whatever we can.  We’ll do all the relays,” said Stanage.

Stanage will take as many athletes as he can to this week’s Bearkat Relays in Raymondville.  The District 32-4A meet is scheduled for April 15 and 16 in La Feria.

Mission Sharyland won the team title with 67 points, followed by La Joya Juarez-Lincoln and Los Fresnos with 62 points each, and PSJA Southwest and Harlingen tied for fourth place with 56 points.

When asked if Port Isabel could possibly put together anything close to a full team by district, the coach replied by saying, “Probably not.  It just doesn’t look like there’s going to be enough people out this year.  There may be one or two changes by district; but, at this point, in time you kinda’ know what you’ve got.  We’ll go with what we got.”

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.portisabelsouthpadre.com/2015/04/06/boys-track-team-looking-towards-district/

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