Chester's Doiron takes second in 300 hurdles
<p class="p1">Chester High School senior hurdler Lucas Doiron, set a new school record of 39.14 in the 300-meter hurdles on May 28 at the IHSA Class 1A State Track and Field meet at Eastern Illinois University.
<p class="p1">"I told Lucas after our first meet that the goal for the season was to run the 300 hurdles in 39 seconds and if he did that, he would compete at state," said Chester coach Ben Hunter. "He ran a 39.14 to finish second.
<p class="p1">"He worked extremely hard to get here and he's leaving his high school career on a high note."
<p class="p1">Doiron placed second to Bret Dannis of Peru St. Bede. Dannis, a sophomore, won the event with a time of 38.89.
<p class="p1">"I started training for the state meet right after the end of the 2015 season," Doiron said. "I contacted Brad Thomas, an excellent local hurdler, who agreed to work with me in the off-season and throughout the 2016 outdoor season.
<p class="p1">"He agreed and it was all work thereafter."
<p class="p1">The work paid off as Doiron ran well throughout the season, winning quite often and running well even when he didn't win.
<p class="p1">Doiron qualified for the state meet by winning the 300-meter hurdles at the Nashville Sectional with a time was 40.05, ranking him third going into the state meet at Charleston.
<p class="p1">"I made it to finals by the skin of my teeth," Doiron said. "I finished 9<sup>th</sup> out of 28 hurdlers with my prelim time of 40.52.
<p class="p1">"I qualified with my time, not by finishing first or second in my heat."
<p class="p1">Dannis of Peru was the top runner in prelims too, with his time of 39.38.
<p class="p1">Conditions were much improved in Saturday's finals and Doiron came to win.
<p class="p1">"I started the season with several goals," Doiron said. "First, I wanted to just get to the state meet and do well.
<p class="p1">"Secondly, I naturally had a goal of winning the 300-meter hurdles."
<p class="p1">After the gun went off in the 300 hurdles, Doiron played it cool until he finally got to the final turn before the last 100-meters.
<p class="p1">"I was actually in 8<sup>th</sup> place out of nine runners as I approached the final turn," Doiron said. "Since I am also a 100-meter hurdler, I knew how to run the final 100-meters of this race."
<p class="p1">Immediately after the race, while all nine runners were at the finish line area on the track, Doiron approached all other eight competitors and shook their hands and extended congratulations to all.
<p class="p1">"I try to live my life right and win or lose I maintain my character and Christianity towards all other competitors," Doiron said. "I never would have thought it could have been so emotional.
<p class="p1">"A year's worth of work paid off and I did not regret a minute of the hard work and time that I put in raining and striving for this event."
<p class="p1">Doiron's time of 39.14 broke the former hurdle record of 39.60 set back in 2010 by Chad Koenegstein.
<p class="p1">Koenegstein broke the former 300-meter hurdles record set earlier by Austin Kerkhover.
<p class="p1">"My senior year went by really fast," Doiron. "It really flew by. I really came to become my own man this year.
<p class="p1">"I have always looked up to older kids who set good examples for me. Now I only hope that I can become the older guy that younger kids look up to".
<p class="p1">As for the future, Doiron said he would like to continue with his career.
<p class="p1">"One thing that I have decided throughout all of this track success this year, I do want to continue running the hurdles in college and I will run even if I have to walk on a team," he said.
<p class="p1">Doiron has three schools in mind for this fall - Missouri Science & Technology, Saint Louis University and Southern Illinois University.
<p class="p1">All three have good engineering departments and that is Doiron's dream of becoming an engineer.
<p class="p1">He is currently waiting to see if any one of those schools give him an offer to run track.
<p class="p1">Chester also qualified two other events for the state meet. The Yellow Jacket 800-meter relay team of Doiron, Chris Lang, Jacob Golding and Savion Smith qualified and competed in the preliminaries on May 26.
<p class="p1">The Yellow Jackets came into the meet ranked 26th out of 32 teams with a time of 1:34.75. The Chester foursome finished 8<sup>th</sup> out of the eight teams in their heat with a time of 1:35.44 and did not advance to the finals.
<p class="p1">Another Chester High School individual, senior Tyler Redeker, also qualified to compete at the state meet in the shot put.
<p class="p1">He advanced out of the Nashville Sectional with a toss of 46-11.25 and was ranked 26<sup>th</sup> out of 35 shot put throwers coming into the meet.
<p class="p1">Redeker chose not to make the trip to Charleston due to other work-related obligations and his low likelihood of advancing to the finals in his event.
<p class="p1">He will play football next fall at Blackburn College.