ST. LOUIS – The field for the 3,200-meter run at next week’s Class 3 state meet became wide open following a DQ in Saturday’s Sectional 1 final at MICDS High School.
MICDS senior Amos Bartelsmeyer entered the race as the favorite with the second fastest time in the state this season. He was running relaxed in third place on the seventh lap, waiting to make a surge to the front of the pack when he abruptly stepped off the track. His distance coach, Paul Zahller, waved him down and told him to step off and then informed him he had been disqualified for breaking out of his lane before reaching the breakline on the first lap.
“(I was) really stupid,” said Bartelsmeyer, who had run a PR of 9:15 this spring. “I didn’t notice it because I don’t think I was thinking about it. I’ve never had that happen to me before.”
Zahller was working the breakline to watch for just such an infraction. He never thought he would have to penalize one of his own athletes.
“I’ve had to call it at different races over the years, but never at a sectional meet like this and never on one of our own guys,” Zahller said. “It’s something that happens rarely. I’ve been disqualified in the 800 when I was in high school in a big meet, so I know what it feels like. It’s something you never want to happen.
“We talk with our team all the time that maturity is knowing what the right thing to do is, and also doing it. The integrity of the sport is important. I think he just wasn’t thinking about the breakline and cut in too early, and it’s important to respect the rules. It was an obvious infraction.”
Zahller said he told Bartelsmeyer to step off the track and end his race to conserve energy after a long meet that already included first-place finishes in the 800-meter run (1:58.60), 1,600-meter run (4:27.28) and the 3,200-meter relay (8:01.31). Zahller also wanted to be fair to the other runners so they knew where they were in their hunt for a state qualifying spot.
Bartelsmeyer was searching for the silver lining in the immediate moments after the race. With a full-slate of distance events still on his plate for the state meet, Bartelsmeyer said there might be a subtle benefit with fewer races to focus on.
“You wouldn’t think consciously because I’m just focusing on one race at a time, but subconsciously if you’ve got it in the back of your mind that after this 800 in 30 minutes I’ve got to run eight more laps -- that could have an effect,” said Bartelsmeyer, who will run for Georgetown next year. “I’m not sure but it might relieve some pressure.”
Zahller said it doesn’t really affect their strategy for the state meet.
“Amos is the kind of guy who really likes the game, he likes to compete, he likes to compete to win,” Zahller said. “We were prepared to go to the state meet to race each one of them, to run our fastest race at that moment, and to hopefully win all those races also.”
As soon as Bartelsmeyer was told of his DQ, he sprinted across the track to cheer teammate Peter Condie, but he too was disqualified from the 3,200. Condie tried to squeeze between Potosi’s Austin King and Festus’ Tyler Gilliam for the final qualifying spot in the last 20 meters of the race. Instead, he altered his steps in an attempt to avoid contact and ended up pushing Potosi’s Austin King in the back as he was trying to get to the outside.