Harrington breaking records

Ali Miller/Staff Writer

Sophomore James Harrington has shown talent in each sport he’s played at Cedar Falls this year. Friday night’s Cole Collinge’s meet only made this statement even more of a fact. Harrington first broke the over 20-year-old 100-meter record.

Not only that, but it was followed by yet another broken record in the 200 meter. The old 100-meter record was set by Joel Snell of Cedar Falls in 1985 and was a 10.6 second run. Harrington’s new record is 10.43. The 200-meter record was set by Matt Hillard 21 years ago, and was run in 21.96 seconds.

Harrington blew CF fans away when breaking this second record after a week of injury and missing the previous meet, running the 200 in 21.73 seconds.

Harrington suffered from a hip flexor injury and missed several practices and one meet. His speed was definitely not expected, he said.

Head coach Bob Schmidt seemed to be quite proud of the young athlete, too. “The word I use with him a lot is amazing. Those records have been there for decades. Was I surprised? Not one bit. There’s no limits on what that kid can do.”

Harrington was not the only shining star at Friday’s event. The whole team pulled together to steal the meet champion title back from state champs Cedar Rapids Washington.

CR Wash was expected to be very strong in every event run. Schmidt said the first few runs were pretty rough, but the boys pulled through in the 100 and 400.

The winning events were the 4×200, the medley and the 4×400 with Jake Jamison being the anchor leg who pulled that relay straight to the finish line with a solid win.

Stealing the title back was not the easiest thing these boys have done, though. The final score was CF 117, CR 109. Waterloo West finished third with 81 points. Schmidt said, “We’re real pleased about beating Washington. Those kids did a nice job.”

Harrington claimed this is not the fastest speed he’d like to be going. “I just wanna run as fast as possible.”