State champ!

JEFFERSON CITY— Solomon Williams tried to break the record.

“I pushed for it,” the senior hurdler said. “But I fell off at the end.”

Williams would have to settle for a time of 13.93 in the 110-meter hurdles, about 12 tenths of a second off the 13.81 record set by Hazelwood East’s Damon Love in 1991.

It doesn’t matter, though— it was still good enough to earn the Waynesville Tiger boys track team its only individual state championship at the 2009 MSHSAA Class 4 Track and Field Championships at Lincoln University’s Dwight T. Reid Stadium on Saturday.

“It felt really good to get this, “ Williams said. “I’ve obviously been waiting for this all season, building to it.”

Williams was Waynesville’s points leader, scoring 20.

The Tigers finished seventh overall with 24. Hazelwood East took the team crown for the boys, getting a win in the last race— the 400-meter relay— to vault them over Lee’s Summit West 68-64.

In addition to his 110 victory, Williams also captured fourth the long jump with 22-9 1/4 on Saturday, adding to his fourth-place finish in the triple jump Friday.

Williams would have liked to take first in the 300 hurdles. He certainly would have been a favorite in that, too— but he wasn’t able to run it in the district championships two weeks ago.

“Man, I was watching it and thought how nice it would be to have competed,” he said. “I could have won it. But it’s cool. I’m happy.”

He knew he could have won because he beat both Cory Beenken of Park Hill South and Prentice Ivy of Chaminade in the 110. Smoked them— Beenken, who won the 300, placed third in the 110 with 14.46, while Ivy, third in the 300, finished second in the 110 with 14.27.

Still, he won’t dwell on the 300 because winning the 110 is preparation enough— he has already signed on to run at Arkansas State University next season.

The Division I program is in the SunBelt Conference and also the home of two other former Tiger tracksters— hurdler Lucas Bateman and sprinter Sam Scott.

Winning a state championship and finishing fourth in two field events at Missouri’s highest high school level might not be enough for him, though.

“I really want to get to the level of competition in college that I’m at now [in high school],” he said.

That won’t be easy— in college, the hurdles increase in height by three inches.
But Williams already has that part covered.

“I got a few [college sized hurdles],” he said. “I’ve been working on them a little. I’ll do more this summer. By the time I start college I should be ready.”

Ready for anything— including, possibly, trying his hand at the decathlon in a year or two.

“It won’t be too hard,” he said with a grin. “I’m actually looking forward to trying all of them.”

All of them?

“Well, everything except the 1,500. I don’t know how I’m going to do that one.”