Liberty track running for gold

JACKSON – Liberty’s 4 X 400-meter relay team had an eye-opening experience last year at Spring Fling in the Class A-AA state championship meet in Murfreesboro.

“I thought we’d compete well and maybe finish third or second or maybe even first,” said Rodney Castille, the anchor on the team who took home gold last year in the 300-meter hurdles.

That ability to compete near the front of the pack didn’t happen though.

“We finished fifth, and we were probably 10 seconds behind the winner,” said Curtarius Cross. “But we got back from that, and it made me want to work harder.”

All of the runners on the relay team play other sports at Liberty. Castille and Kyler Leasure were wide receivers on the football team. Cross was a point guard for the basketball team. But they each found themselves on the track in the weeks after Spring Fling.

“Getting on the track during the summer is one of the things we do to work,” Leasure said. “So when we were out here running for football, I was also thinking about bringing my times down.”

Their times are down. Their time at state last year was 3:29.84. They said they’ve gotten their time now down to 3:24 with the next goal they’re shooting for is 3:19. They’re ultimate goal is pretty lofty though.

“The state record is 3:17. We want to get 3:16,” Cross said.

The Crusaders are working hard to get as fast as possible. They’re going to bigger track events in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and other states such as Kentucky and Arkansas.

“We’re running against the best in the state and the best from other states just trying to get faster,” Castille said. “Because I think we run as good as our competition.

“Memphis is where the fastest people in the state are, I think. And we won’t get any faster if we don’t run against them and see how much faster other teams are than us.”

Liberty head coach Ted McCaslin said that was his plan last year when he started scheduling the longer trips for track.

“I heard some grumbling from some of the kids about driving so far to compete, but I told them we needed to see what the top programs in the state look like so we’re not shocked when we get to state and see them,” McCaslin said. “And it worked because we competed well with them. Better than I think we would have if we hadn’t seen them before.”

All the athletes compete in multiple events with the intention of doing well in each one and giving Liberty a chance to compete on the state level as a team. But they said that goal won’t happen without each runner putting in the appropriate amount of work individually.

“It takes conditioning and speed work and working on our form and working on handoffs for relays,” Leasure said. “We’ve put in work to get better at all of that, but we want to be a little better next week than we are today.

“Hopefully we’ll compete better at state if we make it than we did last year.”

Reach Brandon Shields at bjshields@jacksonsun.com or at 425-9751. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon or on Instagram at jacksonsunsports.