By JOSHUA McKINNEY, Staff Writer
Port Isabel track & field defended its home turf with a championship in the girls meet and a sweep in both boys hurdles events by Omar Silva during the 6th annual Tarpon Relays on Saturday at Port Isabel.
The Lady Tarpons edged past the Harlingen High Lady Cardinals 102-101 to take home the meet title.
“It’s a great feeling,” Port Isabel coach Julie Breedlove said. “You always want to perform well in front of your home crowd, and last year we just missed it by a couple of points. It was a nice surprise.”
Port Isabel’s championship effort in the meet showed Breedlove that her team is performing at its expected level during the first month of the season.
“We’re right where I want us to be,” Breedlove said. “Our times are still coming down every week. Our field events (are doing well), our jumpers are knocking off the next step and trying to get higher every week. We’re just trying to drop our times every week right now.
“I’m really proud of where the girls are right now, and we’re right just kind of right where we need to be to avoid peaking early because we don’t want to do that. But we still have some room to grow each meet, so I feel hopeful about where we are.”
Silva fought a tough north-south wind heading into the curve to set a personal best in the 300-meter hurdles (40.4) and win the 110-meter hurdles (15.92).
The junior hurdler still feels like he has room to improve in both events.
“I need to improve more on my technique and more on my speed, which is basically everything to me,” Silva said. “To me, I just want to improve in everything overall.”
Wen Moore, Silva’s hurdles coach at Port Isabel, thinks the hurdler’s ability to fight through the wind and put up his best 300 hurdles time is a special feat.
“It’s extremely difficult (to set a PR in strong winds),” said Wen Moore, Silva’s hurdles coach at Port Isabel. “Mainly down the backstretch. It’s so hard to breathe coming down that backstretch. It’s extremely difficult. That’s one of the reasons we’re so excited about what he did today, because it was just an amazing feat.”
Harlingen High scored a cumulative 131 points to win the boys team competition.
Harlingen High coach Efrain Ambriz said it’s all about progression at this point in the season, but he likes how well his team ran Saturday.
“I’m really happy. We’re coming around at the right time,” Ambriz said. “We haven’t run all of our events at one meet. We did today, and I think it showed.”
Joshua McKinney covers high school sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6663 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter, he’s @joshuabvherald.