Carroll, Grapevine advance athletes to state track meet

The Carroll track and field team qualified two athletes for the state track and field meet this past week, and coach Justin Leonard said he feels good about their chances in Austin.

Reed Brown (4:07.17) won the boys 1,600 meters and finished second in the 3,200 meters (9:12.09), while teammate Allison Esparza (10:36.54) finished second in the girls 3,200 meters.

Leonard said that he was impressed with how his athletes performed at region, because it is such a difficult meet.

“It’s a tough meet,” Leonard said. “It’s all of the teams in the DFW area and then going all the way out to West Texas, so it’s a lot of talent. It’s tough, because everyone’s goal is to make it to state, so everyone comes into the meet running for their lives, basically, and you have to be prepared. It’s a hard thing to get out.”

Leonard said that the meet actually exceeded his expectations for how his team would do going in.

“I thought we performed really well,” Leonard said. “I was excited about it. Our girls ran really well. We ran exceptional in the 3,200. Allison Esparza qualifying for state in her first year on varsity is incredible. That was a huge feat.”

Leonard said the goals for state are for his athletes to do their best.

“We just want to go out and compete and run the best we possibly can,” Leonard said. “Our goal for this week is to get in a lot of work and prepare ourselves and look at the competition we’ll be facing, and kind of look at some different ways we can go down there and perform and hopefully come away with some hardware.”

Over at Grapevine, the Mustangs also had two state qualifiers at this year’s region meet, both of which were regional champions in their respective events.

Hayden Murphy (9:54.20) won a regional championship in the boys 3,200 meter event, and Peyton Weissmann brought home a gold medal in the boys pole vault with a jump of 14-9.

Colleyville Heritage did not advance any athletes to state.

This story was originally published May 3, 2016 at 1:51 PM with the headline "Carroll, Grapevine advance athletes to state track meet."