Fayetteville’s Koser puts hurdles record on notice

FAYETTEVILLE — Solara Koser can officially say the Class 6A girls state 100-meter hurdles record is in danger of falling this spring.

The Fayetteville junior made that claim Friday afternoon as she won the event with a blistering time of 14.14 seconds during the Bulldog Relays on the Ramay Junior High course.

The current Class 6A state record is 14.34, which Jada Baylark of Little Rock Parkview set in 2016. State records, however, can only be established during state meets or in the Meet of Champs according to Arkansas Activities Association guidelines.

“That was a pretty good race for me, I would say,” said Koser, who ran the 100 hurdles in a wind-aided 13.90 during the Texas Relays last week. “I mean, I’m keeping my times consistent, and I’ve [done] a good job of meeting my goal of being in the low 14s that I’ve set this year.

“Coming off the Texas Relays, it’s different — different environment, different people. Other than that, I’m feeling good about it, and the hard work I’ve been putting in with my trainers and my coaches have paid off. I’m coming for [the state record].”

The hurdles was just the first step in a busy day for Koser. She set a personal-best in the long jump with a leap of 18 feet, 7 3/4 inches and was just edged out by teammate Izzy Sategna, who went 18-8.

She then helped the Lady Bulldogs win the the 400 relay with a time of 50.24 before she capped her outing with a win in the 400 with a time of 58.32.

“I made a pretty big PR in my long jump,” Koser said. “In the last meet, I was just stumped. I was jumping really bad, and my landing was flat. I started working harder on it the past couple of weeks.”

Koser’s performances set the tone for Fayetteville’s girls to stake their claim to the team title. The Lady Bulldogs had only five first-place finishes, but their depth allowed them to finish the meet with 182 points while Bentonville West slipped past Rogers for second place by a 117-110 margin.

Colorado signee Ava Goetz was Fayetteville’s only other first-place finish in the high jump as she cleared an outdoor personal-best 5-8.

“Track is a weird sport because you never know what the weather is going to be,” Fayetteville Coach Drew Yoakum said. “We happened to have a great day with the weather here, and we tried some things with our kids, knowing we’re going to have to ramp it up to have a chance to do well as conference and state.

“We had some kids that did a lot of great things and a lot of PRs in a lot of things. We still have work to do, and that’s part of track. Hopefully we’ll be ready in a few weeks.”

On the boys side, Fayetteville was even more dominating as the Bulldogs finished first in eight events and compiled 205 points. Rogers was a distant second with 100, followed by Cabot with 89 and Bentonville West with 80.

Fayetteville’s big highlight came in the 400 relay, where the team of Trace Foreman, Lucas Robley, Isaiah Taylor and Sloan Jones finished in 41.86 seconds and broke the meet record of 42.21 set by North Little Rock in 2019.

“Those four are probably the fastest kids that we’ve had here in a long time,” Yoakum said. “What they did was really remarkable. They broke a record that’s been up for about 22 years for us, and one of the members on that team was Wallace Spearmon. It was one of the records that’s been there for a while, and that says a lot about these kids.”

Jones also pulled off wins in back-to-back races as he took the 110 hurdles (14.15) and the 100 (10.78). Anthony Hicks did likewise in the 200 (22.60) and the 400 (49.62), as did distance runner Alan Gallardo-Lopez in the 800 (1:54.45) and the 1,600 (4:31.86).