Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
PORTALES - Basketball coaches working the concession stand? Football coaches waving flags for the pole vault? Football players lugging around hurdles? Basketball players handing out soft drinks to runners?
Huh?
Actually, all of the above made perfect sense if you attended the Lone Star Conference Track and Field Championships at Eastern New Mexico University's Greyhound Stadium this past weekend. Athletic staff and athletes volunteered to help make Eastern's first hosting of the LSC Championships a successful weekend.
There were the winds that blew late in the afternoon of Day 2 Friday, taking a tent and a few Coke-bottle shaped recycling bins for a ride. There was the lightning delay that followed. And the cold weather following that. But all in all, it was a good first two days for the event, with Saturday's running finals slated to cap it off in style.
"Our athletic department and the university, they've worked really hard over the last year to organize this meet," Eastern New Mexico head coach Jeff Kavalunas said, as the meet wore on late Friday night. "This is the first one we've hosted and it's only the second year of hosting track and field meets here. So it's a pretty big learning curve for us and we've worked really hard to get organized, putting it on."
The meet began Thursday with some of the LSC's best all-around athletes, as the women competed in the heptathlon and the men in the decathlon. Greyhound senior Colby Bagwell was fifth in the decathlon, while Jessica Campbell won the heptathlon section of the javelin and took sixth in the two-day competition.
As he stood talking in one of the Greyhound Stadium end zones, Kavalunas watched some of his athletes whirling by on the all-weather track. He watched junior sprinter Kandice Miles win her heat in the women's 200-meter dash, watched Portales High graduate Andrew Villegas take second in the men's 200, calling the Eastern freshman a "sleeper." And Kavalunas watched ENMU junior and Texas native Travonne Armstead grab third in the men's 200.
The Greyhounds were competing well in a tough environment, even if it was their own backyard.
"Really good competition," Kavalunas said. "I haven't been able to see a lot, getting the meet going and getting thi3ngs organized. But the Lone Star is tough competition. The first two days are primarily the multi-events and there are some great competitors in the multi-events. And our kids did pretty well. ... A little up and down in some events, but I think finished well. Strong javelin and long jump and had some good ones in the heptathlon. ... So, it's been a great meet, a great meet. A little hiccup in the weather earlier, a little delay with the lightning, but we're really kind of finding our rhythm putting the meet on."
Eastern New Mexico junior and Netherlands native Ivar Moinat took second in the men's 800-meter run prelims, helping him reach Saturday's final. Moinat has been a strong competitor for Eastern's indoor and outdoor programs, and enjoyed the challenge of competing with the LSC's elite athletes over the weekend.
"The Lone Star Conference is one of the best, maybe the best, conference in the nation," Moinat said Friday night. "So it's extremely tough, especially when you run the 800. We have a great field."
But Moinat enjoyed being able to battle that competition at Greyhound Stadium.
"I think it's awesome," he said. "It's weird at the same time to be on your own track in such a big meet. It's different seeing all the schools out here. But it's fun."