AUSTIN — The Shiner Comanches boys 400-meter and 800-meter relay team finished the track and field season in grand style with Gold medals on Saturday evening ( May 11, 2019 ) at the UIL State Track and Field meet held at the University of Texas at Austin’s Mike A. Meyers Stadium. The Lady Comanches 800-meter relay team finished in fourth place with a season-best time in the event.
The Shiner 400-relay team of (from left) Devin Lehnert, Trevor Haynes, Donyai Taylor and Zane Rhodes won the Gold at the state meet on Saturday ( May 11, 2019 ). This same combination of runners also won the 800-relay.
[ NOTE: click on photo to enlarge ]photo by Mark Lube, Shiner Gazette
400 RELAY TEAM WINS FIRST
Devin Lehnert, Trevor Haynes, Zane Rhodes and Donyai Taylor made up the 400-relay team that won the race with 41.88 seconds, beating Alto by 0.91 seconds for the win. Taylor said he and his teammates, have really been working on making handoffs crisper in order to improve their times in the race.
“Our coaches wanted to us to work on our handoffs and the work helped us cut a second from our time,” he said. “We just wanted to have fun and compete with the other teams. I felt we would run a low 42 and was a little surprised we ran a 41.88.”
Kiley Michalec takes a handoff from Kyondra Miller during the 2A girls 4X200 relay on Saturday ( May 11, 2019 ) at the UIL State Track and Field meet. The Lady Comanches had a season-best time in the event.
[ NOTE: click on photo to enlarge ]
Taylor, Lehnert, Haynes and Rhodes have developed very good chemistry.
“We are all friends and hang out a lot,” Taylor said. “This Gold medal is a nice win for us.”
LADY COMANCHES EARN SEASON BEST
The Shiner girls 800-relay team of Carley Hewig, Kaliyah Murphy, Kyondra Miller and Kiley Michalec placed fourth with a time of 1:45.51. While coming in one place shy of a medal, the Lady Comanches did finish the race with a season-best time. Their previous best time was 1:47.20 at the Region IV-2A meet last month in Kingsville. The time at state was faster by 1.69 seconds.
COMANCHES 800 RELAY GETS TOP SPOT
Lehnert, Rhodes, Haynes and Taylor also got the Gold in the 800-relay with a time of 1:28.47, defeating Milano by 0.26 seconds.
“It was awesome to win the 800 relay. It started back in Kingsville (regional meet) because we knew we were better than what we got there. So we came into state very focused and got our minds right. Coming off our win in the 400-relay, Coach (Wendell Boner) told us to settle down and focus on the 800-relay. When that race came around, we were were just focused and ready to win.” The 1:28.47 finish at state was an improvement of 1.94 seconds from regionals.
NOTE:
With their two gold-medal finishes in the relays, the Comanche boys finished the State Meet in third place with 40 total points, behind state-champion Milano at 62 and Holland with 42 points.
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BaerCom - Shiner, Texas 2019