Area track coaches OK with moving championships after damage at Adkins Stadium

Moved away from Jefferson City due to storm damage

The press box at Adkins Stadium was damaged in Wednesday night's tornado. Damage at the stadium necessitated a decision by the Missouri State High School Activities Association to move the Class 3, 4 and 5 track and field championships to Columbia and Washington.
The press box at Adkins Stadium was damaged in Wednesday night's tornado. Damage at the stadium necessitated a decision by the Missouri State High School Activities Association to move the Class 3, 4 and 5 track and field championships to Columbia and Washington.

For the first time since 1977, the Missouri State High School Activities Association will be holding a track and field championship somewhere beside Jefferson City.

And area coaches are just fine with the decision to move the Class 3, 4 and 5 championships away from Adkins Stadium after it was damaged by Wednesday night's storm.

"That's going to be a little different," Jefferson City coach Melvin Myers said.

Members of the host school Jays and Lady Jays teams spent much of Thursday doing cleanup work at the stadium.

"The kids were kind of just thinking about what we needed to do and no one really reacted to it being moved," Myers said. "We're just going to go from here."

Jefferson City is in seven events each on the boys and girls side of the Class 5 championships, which will be held at Battle High School in Columbia.

The Class 4 championships will now be held at Washington High School.

"There are other things that are more important in life," Helias coach Brad Hake said. "We obviously wish this didn't happen and that it was still being held in town. But that area is in bad shape, really bad shape."

Helias has already run this season at Washington in the district championship.

"I wish it was closer to home, but if Washington is going to be a host site, it's a good one for us," Hake said. "I'm sure they struggled with the decisions on where to run and we'll go with it.

"I wouldn't want to be MSHSAA and have to decide where to hold a championship in three different classes on such short notice."

Jack Crull is the lone Helias qualifier. He is scheduled to participate in the 800-, 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs.

Fans going to Washington are reminded the bridge crossing the Missouri River going into town will be closed Saturday morning and they will need to find an alternate route.

The Blair Oaks Falcons and Lady Falcons are among the area Class 3 teams that will compete at Walton Stadium on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia.

"Thanks to all the people that are going to make it happen in a short amount of time," Lady Falcons coach Marc Keys said. "It's nice that we get to do it, and we're thankful to have this event.

"It is a sport, it's important, but in the context of what else is going on, it's not that important and it puts things into perspective. It might take the stress out of it, but we're just doing a sporting event."

The Lady Falcons are in five events in the championships.

"It'll be exciting, it's a new venue," Keys said. "It's nice to do something familiar, but something different is good too."

The Blair Oaks boys will be in two events at state.

"We ended up canceling practice today, and the main reason was I'm sure a lot of those boys were up until 1, 2 or 3 in the morning and were mentally exhausted," Falcons coach Nathan Holtmeyer said Thursday. "We're just basically taking today off and we're taking today's practice and doing it tomorrow."

Holtmeyer was happy the championships weren't postponed until next week.

"That was a big thing for us, trying to keep that routine," he said. "If we went into next week, that would have been a whole new practice routine for us that we'd have to put in place."

The championships will now be condensed into one day, with action beginning with field events at 9 a.m. and preliminaries in running events at 10 a.m. Saturday at all three sites.