Dolores senior captures two state hurdles titles

Dolores senior captures two state hurdles titles

May 22, 2001

CODY BEAVER (in red, on right) of Dolores High School heads down the stretch for the final few hurdles in the finals of the 300-meter intermediate hurdles on Saturday afternoon at the Class 2A State Track and Field Championships at Dutch Clark Stadium in Pueblo. Beaver, who almost made a costly mistake on the far side, recovered to win the event for the second straight year. The senior also won the 110 high hurdles for two consecutive state individual titles in that event.

BY JIM THOMAS
Journal Sports Editor

PUEBLO — Cody Beaver tries to take everything in stride.

He did just that at the Class 2A Track and Field Championships Friday and Saturday at Dutch Clark Stadium.

Beaver, a senior at Dolores High School, won both the 110-meter high hurdles and the 300 intermediate hurdles to take individual state titles in both those events. It was the second year in a row in which Beaver had won those events.

(For other results from the meet, please turn to Sports on pages 8A and 9A.)

Just before Beaver’s race in Saturday’s finals in the 110s, the portable generator that provides on-field power for the AccuTrak system stopped running. There was a long delay, nearly 30 minutes, after the hurdlers had been called to the starting line. But it didn’t faze Beaver.

"It didn’t really bother me. I was ready to run," Beaver said immediately after winning the race for the second straight year. "It was a good race except that I got out to a slow start. I have had slow starts in that race all season."

But Beaver put it all together. He was pushed in the 110s by Limon’s Tom Hubbard, but Beaver was in near-perfect form over the last few hurdles to win a second straight state title.

"I didn't know who was there, but I wasn't going to let them catch me," Beaver added.

He ran the exact same time in the finals that he did in the preliminaries of 14.8 seconds, a personal best. He won the event in 15.2 a year ago.

Just seconds after the race was over, he headed over to the starting line to run in the 100 dash.

"I really didn’t expect to qualify in that event," he said. But Beaver just kept getting better and better in that event as the season progressed and soon found himself qualifying for state last week at regionals in Grand Junction.

In the preliminaries, he was good enough for an eighth seed for the finals.

Running on the track nearest the stands along the wall, Beaver was smoked in the finals. He finished eighth in a very strong field, with a time of 11.8 — a full second slower than the state meet time of 10.8 set by Holyoke’s Brett Ortiz.

"That was fun," Beaver remarked after the race. "It was fun running against some of the best sprinters in the state."

In the 300 hurdles, Beaver won again in 39.93. He finished nearly two seconds faster than his winning time of a year ago.

He started well, then missed on his steps midway through his race and almost lost his stride.

It proved to be no problem, though, as state champions can recover from those kinds of mistakes, and Beaver did.

"My start in this race was pretty good," he said. "I made a mistake coming around the turn. I went over on the wrong leg.

"That was no big deal, you just push through it," he said. "I knew that kid from Holyoke was right with me hurdle for hurdle. I lost sight of him. I saw him and then I just ran and made it past him," Beaver said following that race.

Beaver, 17, was graduated from Dolores High School on Sunday.

He will take his hurdling talents to Adams State College in Alamosa. He recently signed a national letter of intent to attend the NCAA Division II school.

"It has a good track program and it is close to home," he said.