Columbia Rock Bridge coach Neal Blackburn capped off a stellar 2021-22 school year by being named the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Missouri boys track and field coach of the year.
Rock
Bridge coach Neal Blackburn smiles as he, his staff and boys team walk
to the podium to pose with the 1st-place team trophy after a dominating
victory, winning their 2nd straight Class 5 Boys track and field state
championship.
He guided the Bruins to a Class 5 title in track, after taking second in cross country in the fall. Rock Bridge flat dominated the meet with 97 points - a number that even exceeded his high-water mark estimate of 50 to 80 points.
The 97 points were the most points ever scored by the winning team in the state's largest classification, passing the mark of Blue Springs set in 2015 with 96 points.
"For the guys to do that at a state meet is surreal ... it doesn't seem real," Blackburn said. "Things start to play out and then it's let's try for the all-time (point) mark and we got it."
What made what the Bruins did more impressive was the team had a sectional meet on Monday due to weather issues. Within days of qualifying for state, the team drove down Highway 63 to Jefferson City to claim the state title.
"You know it's really just a compliment to the community of Rock Bridge track and field," Blackburn said. "It's cliche, but it takes a village of like-mindedness to stand out in any endeavor. The community of supportive administrators, encouraging parents, committed coaches and athletes that are all bought into the program are the recipients of this award. My name is associated with the honor, but it just doesn't happen without our community. I have the opportunity to establish a tone based on a vision, and I have such good people around me to help that come to fruition. I'm thankful for such recognition for our program. I'll never forget where it once was and what it's taken to approaching relevancy in the sport."
The Bruins became the first team to repeat as the state's largest class champion since Blue Springs won back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015.
In last year's winning effort, Rock Bridge totaled 52 points. This was team trophy number five for the school and the fourth straight for Blackburn's squads.
The most points came in the 100-meter dash, with Rock Bridge pulling off a rare 1-2 finish, scoring 18 points. Senior Chris Giles won the race (10.46) and teammate Casey Hood, a junior, was second (10.53) - both times fast enough to break the Class 5 state meet record. Hazelwood West's Justin Robinson set the mark at the truncated one-day meet in 2019 at 10.56.
That was one of four state meet records broken in Class 5.
Rock Bridge's Chris Giles (right) and Casey Hood went 1-2 in the 100 to score 18 points.
Giles added a second individual title in the 400 (47.95) ahead of Liberty-Wentzville's David Richard (48.85), repeating as the champion in the event after running 49.04 last year.
Giles made it to the top of the podium four times after individual or relay events and a fifth time for the team trophy. Giles, Allen, Hood, and Seamon couldn't have the 4x200 state title after earning the overall state record at Districts, so they went out and dominated the 4x100 and 4x400-meter relays.
In the 4x100 prelims on Friday, the quartet broke the Class 5 state meet record, running 41.50-seconds, bettering the mark set by Liberty North (41.63) in 2016. Rock Bridge won the prelims by 9/10ths of a second. A day later, the quartet ran 41.79, winning the state title by just over 2/3's of a second.
The Rock Bridge Bruins celebrate their 4x100 title.
That same group made up the 4x400-meter relay. They cruised to 1st place in the prelims in 3:21.23.
Rock Bridge's Casey Hood (bottom left) raises his arm high, holding his index finger to the sky while watching teammate Chris Giles finish a comeback anchor leg, taking the Bruins from 5th to 1st in the 4x400 with a 46.82-second split to cap the meet with 10 more team points for the Class 5 team state champions.
With two days of races already on their legs and less than the usual six days between Sectionals and State, the foursome put an exclamation point on the meet, winning the 4x400 final in 3:19.47. The margin of victory was .77-seconds.
Sophomore distance phenom Andrew Hauser captured his first state track title, winning a loaded 1,600-meter run in 4:11.72, securing one of five event titles for the Bruins.
After running on the 4th-place 4x800 squad then taking 3rd in 9:05 in the 3200 on Day 1 of the state meet, Andrew Hauser won the 1600-meters in 4:11.72 on Day 2, totaling 16 points in individual events to help the Bruins to the team title, just like his brother Matthew did last year as a senior for Rock Bridge.
The day before, the Bruins took 4th in the 4x800 in 8:00. They closed out day 1 with 13 points in the 3200. The trio of sophomore Hauser, junior Ian Kemey, and senior Weston Jokerst put themselves among the best threesome of distance teammates in state history with their performances this Spring. The group went 3-5-6 in the best 3200 state meet race ever. Hauser ran 9:05.11, Kemey 9:10.36, and Jokerst 9:12.00.
Ian Kemey (left), Andrew Hauser (center), and Weston Jokerst (right) wracked up 13 points in the 3200-meters for Rock Bridge.
Behind Hauser in the 1600, Kemey was 5th and Jokerst 10th. Jokerst capped the Rock Bride distance crew's state meet with his 4th and final race of the meet. The Southern Illinois signee finished his 15th and 16th laps of the meet with a 1:56.72, 4th-place 800-meter finish, adding 5 more team points.
"You've got to have that "guy" and that "girl" willing to go all in to be great," Blackburn said. "And if it becomes contagious, especially at practice, we begin to see groups becoming those "kids" that remain hungry for greatness and are willing to work for it, collectively, and not in isolation. When you see a group of five or six guys running 22 mid for 200 repeats, and another group of kids running multiple 800s in 2:04; that's so incredibly inspiring and motivating for every single person within an earshot of the track. How you get to that point is hard. It goes back to the community. There must be authenticity between all of the stakeholders wanting the best for one another and expressing it through genuine regard for one another. At that point, ceilings have the potential to get shattered.
"You're no longer just competing for self, but for those that have all shared in the training together. We had to remain grounded in that reality throughout the season. We also had to be really smart about handling the stress of meets along with the training schemes. Keeping in mind the end goal, we had to do some things regarding competition we've never done before. We went from an abundance of Friday meets in 2021 to Saturday meets in 2022 and that alone forced us to realign our training weeks. We had to limit races most meets for all athletes, while not even racing our sprinters in other meets. It's difficult not to put out the complete product some weekends, but we had to do what was best for our kids with the long-term objectives at the forefront. At the end of the day, it worked out pretty well. As unpredictable as performances can be for 14-18-year-olds, they exceeded and surpassed so many of our expectations. I believe they had each other in mind for the entire duration."
