Some B-A runners, along with many other runners and jumpers, were forced to await their official times after an electronic timing issue with time coaches at the B-A Invitational on Monday.
There were nine events that did not receive their results and official times at the event. Coaches, runners, and jumpers were all sent home around 9:45 p.m. without ribbons or awards being presented.
For the boys, the 1600, 3200, 1600 relay, triple jump, and pole vault heights, distances, and times were not made official by time coaches until Tuesday. On the girls side, the 200, 100 hurdles, 1600 relay, and discus were also not given official results.
The cause for the delay and error in times and distances was due to the sheer amount of athletes at the invitational. “ It was all really overwhelming for time coaches with over 500 athletes competing. We wanted all times and results to be official,” said B-A coach Nick Lovrich.
Meets and invitationals have now gone to digital live scoring on MeetPro. Coaches were not completely sure of timing results as there was an issue with the clock and time coaches did not put times or results in for certain events.
On top of place winners not being announced, both the Bob Fowler award and the Miss R award were not awarded to athletes. The overall team title was also not given out. The plan is for awards and the team title to be given out at a later date when times and distances are made official.
Coach Lovrich was concerned that everyone needed to have their correct time.
“We were finding some errors in different events and wanted to make sure we had it right. We wanted it to be fair to kids to make sure they got the recognition they deserved,” said Lovrich.
The times were made official on Tuesday afternoon and results were released.
Dalton Poorman was a jumper who was awaiting triple jump mark, when made official Poorman took home first place.
Poorman wasn’t unhappy to wait for the official results considering the outcome.
“It was amazing. It was the perfect time to PR,” he said. “I want to get better at every meet and place at districts this year.”
Briley Campbell placed 6th in the 200. The girls 1600 relay team placed 5th.
As a team the boys finished 4th overall with 57.5 points just half a point behind third place Tyrone. The girls finished 7th overall with 26 points. Bedford won the invitational in both the boys and girls sections.
