BAYFIELD – Forget the arm, Michael Hawkins broke the Bayfield High School shot put record with his mind.
It’s a mind that’s broken the record over and over again in dreams and visualizations, and it’s a mind that’s disregarded the ripped-up, separated left shoulder week after week to push closer to the 49-foot, 7-inch BHS record.
Saturday morning at the Intermountain League championships, Hawkins’ right throwing arm finally caught up to his brain.
The senior launched a 50-foot, 5-inch throw to smash the record at Wolverine Country Stadium in Bayfield, then stripped the brace on his soon-to-be-surgically repaired shoulder with shaking a hand, stretched it out and let his IML championship hurl wash away the pain.
“It’s so loose, I can pull it out with my hand. Just work through the pain ... ’cause I wanted it,” Hawkins said. “I wanted that record for so long. Finally got it. Last meet, senior year,” Hawkins said. “Kind of crazy.”
Melodrama kind of crazy. Only this play isn’t quite finished.
“Perfect script,” BHS throw coach Chip Hodlmair said. “One more page, next week: a state championship.
“He’s the kid that’s got the mentality to win state,” Hodlmair said. “That’s how mentally tough he is. He’s got one arm, and he’s the best thrower in the state. He’s going to win state with one arm. That’s how mentally tough he is.”
Hawkins’ record was the star of just the first act in two three-act plays: a throwers’ production and school-record drama.
Three BHS throwers won league championships with personal records in the morning, then Bayfield’s Eva-Lou Edwards and Keith Wickman broke two more school records in the afternoon.
And when the curtain finally closed on the IML stage, the BHS boys team got to take one last bow with an IML title in hand.
They scored 117 points to top Alamosa’s 111 in the five-team field.
“Oh my goodness, just an overall performance from all aspects of the meet,” BHS head coach Sherry Kimball said. “An overall performance from the whole team, with the seniors leading the way.
“And I wish I could’ve seen Michael’s face when he broke that record.”
She could’ve seen Aubry Brown’s shortly after, when he spun his way to a personal record and league title with a 136-7 discus throw.
“Just kept my arm up,” the sophomore said. “Stood straight up in the circle instead of bending over – scraping my knuckles on the ground, as coach says.”
In the adjacent circle, the Wolverines’ Sam Espinosa kept her knuckles moving forward. She tossed a 35-2.75 in the girls shot put to take another personal record and another league title for the throwers. She’s just 5 inches short of Candace Shaw’s school record.
All three throwers will be competing at the CHSAA Class 3A State Championships Thursday through Saturday in Denver. The top 18 marks in each event qualify after this weekend.
“Lots of good things for Bayfield throwers this weekend,” Hodlmair said.
And that was before the track events even started.
Wickman proved he’s the fastest man in the IML, again, streaking past his competition in 11.58.
Then, he streaked past them again in the 200, where he also nudged past his own school record of 22.8, finishing in 22.71.
“I really don’t know,” Wickman said of the reason behind his fastest time. “It just worked out that time.”
On the opposite end of the distance spectrum, Edwards thought she had a pretty good idea of why she broke the 1,600 record.
All week, Edwards said, the track team does sprint workouts on the track. A cross country state champion with a love for the lonely distances, Edwards said she usually takes Friday’s for her own style of workout.
“I’m like ‘Yes!’ and I go run around Bayfield for who knows how long,” she said.
This week she skipped the ritual, and she ran 1,600 meters Saturday in exactly this long: 5 minutes, 18.31 seconds, breaking Jackie Shaw’s 5:19.98 mark and winning a league title.
Edwards also won the 3,200 in 11:21.58.
“It was a good day. Good competition, too,” she said.
The competition actually was a little too good for the BHS girls – and everyone else.
The Pagosa Springs Pirates ran away with the girls title, scoring 118 points. Bayfield was second with 90.
But that didn’t keep BHS athletes from a bevy of other PRs and league titles.
Trista Hooley, a junior, added to the Bayfield conference-title take in the pole vault, clearing 8-3 to win the event, set a new PR and sprung her way into the upper reaches of the state rankings.
John Arnold took second in the boys event behind Samuel Bilderbeck of Alamosa, who tied the stadium record with a 15-foot jump.
“I finally started to bend the pole,” Hooley said after the girls competition.
With that technique coming along, she’s got nowhere to go but up in Denver.
Contrast that with Trevor Gabbard, who despite nabbing a PR and a league title, has no where left to run.
Gabbard blew out his competition in the four-lap 1,600, popping to an early lead and making it longer with each lap.
“I was just going,” he said. “It was the last meet so it was state or go home.”
Despite the personal-best 4 minutes, 51.53 seconds and earning conference champion status, home it is. Gabbard missed the top 18 in Class 3A by about 8 seconds.
“Go fast. I try not to look back,” he said of his running strategy. “I just think they’re right behind me.”
That was good practice for the rainy 3,200 where he and teammate Luke Webb made their move on the final two laps. On the last time around the oval, Webb pulled ahead on the first-half lap, then Gabbard leapfrogged him for a finish with Webb hot on his heels.
Gabbard’s 11:11.07 won him a second league title, but that time, too, won’t be quite good enough for state.
Bayfield’s other league champions were: The girls 4x100 relay of Morgan Allred, Amy Roach, Hooley and Ashley Schulder also sprinted to a first-place finish in 52.76; TJ Pazell in the long-jump crown with a 20-0.5 leap.
jsojourner@durangoherald.com
