Wednesday, April 15, 2009
One year ago, as high school seniors, Keith Hayes, Keyen Porter and Lawson Montgomery competed against each other in the 110-meter hurdles at the Kansas Relays. Now, the freshmen will be competing together as teammates for Kansas.
Freshmen hurdlers Keyen Porter of Blue Springs, Mo., Lawson Mongomery of Bennington and Keith Hayes of Wichita will be competing in the Kansas Relays, which begin today at Memorial Stadium. All three raced against each other at last year's Kansas Relays, with Porter winning the 110-meter hurdles final.
All three qualified for the finals of the boys’ 110-meter hurdles last year and none of them knew each other at the time.
Montgomery and Hayes, however, had run against each other before. Hayes beat Montgomery in the finals of the same event at the 2007 Relays.
Montgomery said he knew that he and Hayes were both interested in competing for the KU Track and Field team and had some words for Hayes right before the race.
“Lawson came up to me before the race and said, ‘Hey, teammate,’” Hayes said. “And I was like, ‘Hey, teammate?’ and then he said he was going to KU too, and I was like, ‘Oh, nice to meet you.’”
For Montgomery, who took fourth place in the 2007 finals, coming to the 2008 Relays was the motivation to snatch from Hayes the opportunity to get back-to-back victories.
“There was definitely motivation to beat him,” Montgomery said, “but I knew I was going against some great athletes.”
But one of those athletes, Porter, would beat both Montgomery and Hayes in the finals.
“I didn’t know anybody out there,” Porter said. “I just showed up and ran.”
In the finals of that event, Porter got the victory with a time of 14.14 seconds, edging out Hayes by .18 seconds. Montgomery finished in fifth place.
Porter said he felt good about his performance during the race.
“When I was sitting in the blocks, I was telling myself that I can do this,” Porter said. “I know I can win, and I went out and I did.”
Porter said he had no idea who Hayes and Montgomery were at the time, or that Hayes had won the event the previous year. And the chance meeting didn’t cross Porter’s mind until later, when all three were talking about the event one day at a Jayhawks practice.
TODAY Kansas Relays Memorial Stadium Admission is free for students with KUID. 10 a.m. Decathlon 100-meter dash 10:30 a.m. Heptathlon 100-meter hurdles 10:45 a.m. (approx.) Decathlon long jump 11:15 a.m. (approx.) Heptathlon high jump 12:35 a.m. (approx.) Decathlon shot put 1:45 p.m. (approx.) Heptathlon shot put 2:25 p.m. (approx.) Decathlon high jump 3:15 p.m. (approx.) Heptathlon 200-meter dash 4:30 p.m. (approx.) Decathlon 400-meter dash See full schedule at www.kansasrelays.com.
“They started talking about it and how they said they ran in it,” Porter said. “Then I realized that Keith was the person on my outside that I was thinking about mid-race like, ‘Who is this guy trying to come and beat me?’”
Hayes, Porter and Montgomery agreed the Relays were a special event in their track careers a year ago in high school.
“If you got to go, that meant you were good,” Hayes said. “So to actually go and compete against the best of the best and then beat some of the best actually meant something, not just going to another track meet.”
All three will be returning to compete in the hurdles events at this year’s Relays, this time wearing Kansas jerseys.
“It hits home, because it’s a home meet, and you want to keep that tradition going that it used to have,” Montgomery said. “It’s more meaningful because it’s a home meet and you want to show off for the home crowd.”
— — Edited by Chris Horn
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