After getting a call late Wednesday night that their meet at Melbourne Central Catholic was canceled, sophomore Austin Hayes, junior Jared Hayes, and seniors Christian Hayes and Grant Gibson scrambled to find an alternative race. They ended up signing up for the Astronaut Invitational which was held Friday.

“I was actually kind of glad that we got to compete at Astronaut instead of MCC,” Jared said. “We had better competition than we would’ve had at MCC, and I attribute that to the success we had.”

Jared won the 800 meters in a time of 1:58.84, breaking his own school record.

“I am not surprised that I was able to do this,” he said. “I have been having a really solid couple weeks of training, and I can’t wait to see what I can do in the future.”

In the 4×400 meter relay, the team — Austin Hayes, Grant Gibson, Christian Hayes, Jared Hayes — was able to break another school record. Its time of 3:37.96 was good for fourth place and was four seconds faster than the previous school record of 3:41.97 which was set a month and a half ago by the same team.

“It is promising to see how much we have improved in such a short amount of time,” Gibson said. “If we keep it up, we should have no problems moving past districts and onto regionals.”

Gibson also noted how every member of the team ran a new personal best in their individual events before they competed in the 4×400.

“Overall, this meet was a huge success, and I just can’t wait until we get to break some more records at our next meet,” he said.

The team’s next meet will be held Sunday at MCC.

By Austin Hayes