Lisbon wins Class 1A team title on third-place 4x400 finish

DES MOINES - A one-two punch was exactly what Lisbon needed to lift the Lions to where they've never been before.

T.J. Krob was already going to run in the 1,600-meter run, but Coach Casey Baxa knew his squad would need a little help to achieve the team title. That's when seniors Benton Frey and Ryan Light took over in Friday's 1,600-meter relay prelim.

'Instead of coming into today with just one hammer, we needed our 4x4 team to have two hammers to get this thing done,” Baxa said. 'They did their job (Friday) night and came back in the last race of the meet and did what they needed to do to deliver for us.”

On the strength of a third-place finish by that relay squad in Saturday's final at Drake Stadium, Lisbon scored 42 points and clinched its first-ever boys team championship in Class 1A. The Lions ran 3:28.41 in the final after setting their school record the night before in the prelims.

Lisbon entered the final event in first with a six-point lead on Lawton-Bronson, but Baxa tried to alleviate some of the pressure on his relay team the night before.

'I just told them, ‘Go have fun and wherever we land, we land,'” Baxa said. '‘If we're champs at the end of the day, then we're champs at the end of the day.'”

That 1,600-meter relay performance had cloud nine feeling pretty fluffy for Baxa, and gave him a smile he doesn't think he'll be able to get rid of for weeks.

'I can't thank those guys enough,” Baxa said. 'They've busted their tails all year. I'm so proud of them and I can't say enough good things about how hard they worked every day. It's just a great thing for us to bring home our first state title and it's been something else.”

Krob added eight points to the Lions' total when he finished runner-up in the 1,600-meter run in 4:28.74.

Ryan Izer of Turkey Valley won the race in 4:28.35, which was his first state championship. He was a state cross-country runner-up last fall and was second in the 1,600 at state a year ago.

'I was getting out to follow Krob and Ross Emmanuel from Maharishi,” Izer said. 'They didn't get out and run with me so I thought, ‘Okay if I get out in the lead it's going to be a faster pace.' I just kind of kept running.”

Krob took the lead from Izer with a little more than a lap to go, but Izer's kick rounding turn four propelled him into the lead. The strategy for Krob was to stick with Izer in the beginning and contest as the race progressed.

'I just said, ‘If he's going to do this, I've got to do it too,'” Krob said. 'I knew he's a good athlete.”

Belle Plaine senior Justin Jacobi notched a third-place finish in the 110-meter hurdles, running 15.31. Jacboi said he could feel the nerves right before the race since it was to be his last, but those shook off once he got in the blocks.

'Going into the race, I had a bad start. I always have bad starts,” Jacobi said. 'I started making up ground in the middle, but it wasn't enough. I hit the ninth hurdle and that slowed me down too, but it wasn't a bad race.”

Vance Bohlen of Belle Plaine was sixth in the 100-meter dash, running 11.78.

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