Injury Halts Red Devils at the National Meet

It is funny how one little thing can ruin a weekend. Sometimes you can have a great week of practice and have your athletes fully prepared for the National Meet. Everything could be in place for some great times and performances. This is what we trained for all during the fall track and. winter months. Allen's top sprinter, Chase Bradley had felt good all week about his practices and was looking pretty sharp. Chase felt fine after his warm-up, and Coach DeGrado believed he was ready to go. The starter of the meet was holding the athletes in the set position longer than usual. Throughout the meet, there were a lot of false starts. When it was Chase's time to compete, he looked very composed and ready. The starter called him to the line and on set, you could tell something bad was about to happen, because they were being held for a long time. Chase's arms flinch and the starter calls everybody out and gives Chase a warning. The athletes got back into the blocks and when the gun fires Chase gets out quick, on about his second step, Chase stumbles and attempts to power out of it and in the process, tweaks his hamstring. He finished the race in a time of 7.21, after he pulled up with about 15meters to go. He still finished 21st in the Nation after stumble and pulling up. "After he finished I knew something was wrong," DeGrado said. "We sent him to the trainers there to get his leg looked at and when he got back he informed us that could probably go, it hurts but he'll be fine." DeGrado said. After hearing that, Coach Littrell and Coach DeGrado knew they had to remove him from the meet in order to keep the outdoor season intact. The bad thing was that Allen did not have an alternate for the 4x 400m relay. The only other guys that were capable of running were either out of shape or injured. So Allen's indoor season ended abruptly. "You hate to see these things happen, especially to guys like Chase, Andrew, Daniel and Harry." "I know what kind of a competitor's they are." Andrew, Daniel, and Harry, all were okay with Chase not running. Chase was the only one not okay with him not running. Those guys knew how much it meant to him, however, they did not want to sacrifice outdoor season. "Chances are Chase would have pulled his hamstring." DeGrado said. The 4x400m relay would have broken the school record for sure. Andrew, Daniel, and Harry would have been running it fully rested. Now we will start training for our first track meet which is the Southwestern Invite, in Winfield, KS, both Coaches alma mater.