UIL state track: Wellington's Williams closes career with win in 110 hurdles

AUSTIN - Wellington senior hurdler Walker Williams ran to gold and the Panhandle High boys team ran out of gas late in a strong bid to capture a team state championship.

Those two performances highlighted Saturday night action in the Class 1A Division I portion of the University Interscholastic League Track and Field State Meet at Mike A. Myers Stadium.

Williams capped quite the senior season, running a personal best 14.53 in the 110 hurdles and winning over Hico senior Cade Hitzfeld (14.58).

In December, Williams had a monster game on defense for Wellington during the Skyrockets 40-6 pounding of Falls City in the Class 1A Division I state championship football game played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Williams was named the defensive MVP of the game.

"This is a great way to end my career at Wellington," said Williams after winning the 110 hurdles.

Williams was remarkably calm for a teenager who just captured the first track gold of his career.

Williams basically apologized for not being more excited but said "nerves got the best of me last year so I've tried to stay calm. Plus I was hoping to get to state in other stuff. I've done tennis, academics and one-act play. We were a state-alternate in one-act last year. It's kind of a bummer we only made it to like district this year."

Williams owned the 110-hurdle race for the most part with a strong start and was smooth over the hurdles until near the end. Despite hitting a hurdle he refused to let that bother him and handled the presssure.

Hitzfeld had nipped Williams last year for second place at state in the 110s by three tenths of a second.

Williams effort, along with Terry Gilbreath's silver in the 400-meters, handed Wellington an eighth place finish in the boys team race with 32 points.

Panhandle qualified 13 athletes and all three relays to the state meet and its sights were on winning the team title.

Propelled by Friday's first 1-2-3 finish at state in the shot put - Kyle Weiss (gold), Tanner Barnett (silver) and Luke Amos (bronze) - Panhandle owned the early lead in the team race with those 24 points.

Add nine points won in the discus by Barnett (second place) and Weiss (sixth place) early Saturday and Panhandle had 33 points on the board before the running events started.

"We are sure proud of that effort of our throwers," said Panhandle coach Jacob Thompson. "Being the first to accomplish that and collecting those kind of team points made for a special meet."

Panhandle's highlight in the running events was by their Mr. Everything athlete Tyler Hall. Hall, who passed for more than 9,000 yards in his football career to rank No. 2 all-time in the Texas Panhandle, placed third in the 400-meter dash, earning Panhandle six key points.

Hall was near the back of the nine-team field a little less than midway through the race but his late rush was good for a 50.70 and meant Panhandle was within two points of the team lead.

"That was a gutsy effort by Tyler in the 400," Thompson said.

"It was satisfying to medal but I wanted to go out a winner my senior year," Hall said. "It's fun going up against guys like Terry (Gilbreath). It's a fun way to go out."

With double points awarded in the relays, Panhandle opened the first of its three relays by running a season-best 43.53 in the 400 relay. However, the Panthers wound up in sixth place securing two points.

In the 800 relay the Panthers once again produced a season-best 1:32.87, but finished in eighth with no points.

Entering the final event of the night Panhandle knew what it had to do to overtake first-place Alto.

"For us to win it all we had to have Alto finish fifth and we had to win," Thompson said. "Alto finished fifth but we had sort of a fiasco deal there."

Panhandle was disqualified for failing to complete a handoff in the proper space allowed on its first exchange.

Still, Panhandle's 41 team points made for an interesting two days for the strong contingent of vocal Panther fans in the crowd.

Those 41 points were good for fourth place behind third-place Stamford (42 points), second-place Falls City (64) and first-place Alto (66).

The Panthers had nothing to be ashamed of taking home five individual medals.

"Our kids can look themselves in the mirror and know they ran as hard as they could," Thompson said. "We ran some of our best times of the year. We just ran into some kids who ran fast."

¦ Gilbreath goes silver on finale: Wellington senior Terry Gilbreath, a first-team all-state running back, closed out his high school career with the silver in the 400 meters, running 50 seconds flat. "I feel I could have run faster but that Falls City kid (gold medalist Joseph Swirec) did real well," Gilbreath said. "He's a strong guy and he'd just finished the 800 (relay). Getting a silver medal, there's not much more you could ask for."

¦ Girls take home bronze medals: A pair of 1A Division I girls entries from the Texas Panhandle took home bronze medals late Saturday.

Vega sophomore Catie Fangman finished third in the 300-meter hurdles in a time of 46.21. In the 1600 relay, Wellington's quartet of Terrikah Gilbreath, Natalie Andrews, Mikala Klink and Erin Richardson combined to finish third in 4:04.47. That was just behind gold medal winner Shelbyville (4:03.94) and silver medalists Goldthwaite (4:03.97).

Lee Passmore contributed to this story.