Eric Hamilton, what an amazing senior year! All state halfback in football and banged up rather severely after football season, Eric had what could charitably be described as a mediocre indoor season. He hung in there though and became healthier, stronger and faster. His season culminated with state meet finishes of 3rd place in the 400 meter relay (42.5) and 6th place in the 100 meters.

Our 800 runner, Mark Rupnow, like many of our other athletes, was not given much of a chance by the "experts" to even make the finals of the 800 meter run much less place. Few people outside of our team had any idea of what kind of a competitor that Mark was though. On Friday Mark put on a furious kick in the last 100 meters of the 800 trials to narrowly edge out another competitor for the 9th and final qualifying position for the finals Saturday afternoon, running a carreer best time of 1:58.06. In the finals Mark again ran a tremendous last 100 meters to finish 8th (1:59.37)and give his team a much needed, one point. It's the little things that count and this little thing counted something big, we won the state title by 2 points.

Kenny Merritt; our success really came down to how well he would do in the 3200 meter run, the second to last event. We knew (and Kenny knew also) that he needed to finish 6th or better for us to lock up a second straight state title. He ran a consevative confident race unselfishly positioning himself to assure himself of at least a 6th place finish. Kenny made a major move with about 600 meters to go and finished fifth (9:42.68). Could he have finished higher than fifth? Probably but instead of making an all out attempt at personal glory (and risk falling apart at the end of the race), Kenny ran for his team.

The leader of our team, the guy that we would have not even the remotest chance to win without, was Rance Streeter. We have had many outstanding sprinters at Park but none of them has been the caliber of Rance. In 1997, he place third in the 200 meters from lane nine to lock up the state championship and his performance in 1998 was no less amazing. This year he placed second in the 100 meters (10.86), 3rd in the 200 meters (22.08), and anchored our 400 meter relay to a 3rd place finish. His 14.5 points were almost half of our team total of 33. Rance is truly the finest sprinter that we have ever seen at Park.

Unlike 1997, we were not even considered to be a contender for the state title. Yet the 14 athletes who competed in 1998, competed up to or beyond their potential in a number of events. In addition to these athletes who scored points, let's not forget those who didn't, the remainder of the Park Boys' Track Team. These athletes competed hard all year and created a positive competetive atmosphere that was essential in our State Championship.