Before fans got to witness Alan Webb make history in the mile-invitational at the 82nd Kansas Relays, they witnessed Lauren Bonds make some history of her own.

In the women’s 1,500 meters, Bonds, junior, ran a personal best 4:27.36 in front of her home crowd. The time qualified her for the NCAA Midwest Regionals in May.

“I’m thrilled that it’s now out of the way,” Bonds said.

Bonds said she owed her performance to junior Kellie Schneider. Schneider, who won the unseeded 1,500 on Thursday, paced the first three laps of Bonds’ race like a rabbit before a planned dropout.

“I’m really indebted to her,” Bonds said.

The next historic event featured athletes such as American mile record holder Alan Webb, 2008 Olympian Christian Smith and Peter van der Westhuizen, a former University of Nebraska runner from South Africa.

Throughout each lap, fans cheered on the runners as they tried to break the four-minute mile.

In the end it came down to Webb and Van Der Westhuizen with Webb edging out as the winner with a time of 3:58.90. Van Der Westhuizen finished right behind him with a time of 3:59.54.

Shortly afterward both men took a victory lap around as both celebrated running a sub-four minute mile. Webb’s time ranks second all-time in Kansas Relays history, behind Kansas’ Jim Ryun’s 3:54.70 in 1967.

The men’s 110-meter hurdles finals was déjà vu for freshmen Keith Hayes, Keyen Porter and Lawson Montgomery because last year all three were in the finals at the Relays in the hurdles event in high school with Porter winning out.

Hayes took second running a time of 14.05 seconds in the event behind Jeffrey Julmis of Cloud County Community College being edged by .03 seconds. Porter came in third running at 14.35 seconds

Hayes said around the last hurdle is when he really lost his composure almost falling at finish line but felt that he executed very well getting a regionally qualifying time.

“I’m satisfied with my race for now,” Hayes said.

In women’s action Kansas, Missouri State and Seton Hall battled out the 4x400 race down to the last leg. For Kansas a team of freshman Shayla Wilson, and seniors Nickesha Anderson, Sha’Ray Butler and Charity Stowers with a time of 3:43.14, gave up the win to Missouri State with a time of 3:41.39.

“We did our thing,” Anderson said. “We have our best team ahead and we know when it all boils down to it, we’re going to do it,”

Anderson said it was however frustrated for some of the team that have not yet regionally qualified. Anderson said they may have not gotten the victory, but they were able to knock off three seconds from their previous attempt.

“We should have won that 4X4 but we didn’t, and we’re not going to beat ourselves about it, we put on a good show by our teammates and we did good.” Anderson said.

Like the women’s event, the men’s 4x400 came down to the last leg with Kansas, Seton Hall and Wichita State with times differentiating by a little more the one second. Kansas runners were juniors Jacob Breth and Reggie Carter, Senior Jarrell Rollins and Sophomore Keron Toussaint.

Unfortunately Seton Hall edged out the Jayhawks winning with a time of 3:11.41 and the Jayhaws taking second 3:21.45.

“Both teams did their best and we’ve to continue to make them better,” Coach Stanley Redwine said.

Redwine said he was pleased overall with how his team did at the Relays.

“Everyone ran their hardest and we looked pretty good,” Redwine said. “We had some better standings in regionals with more athletes qualifying so that’s the kind of thing we wanted to do.”

— — Edited by Realle Roth