Chesterton sends a 4x800 relay foursome to state meet for the first time since 2023, thanks to second-place finish at regional with a time of 8:00.35

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Seniors Ray Hundt, Will Roberson, Zarek Sierazy and junior Spencer Martin will compete in the state track and field meet for the first time in their high school careers.
They all ran well and at the Valparaiso regional produced Chesterton’s best time (8:00.35) in the 4x800 since the team from three years ago that ran at state.
In doing so, the Trojans trimmed about 11 seconds from their best time this season to place second at the regional meet.
“I think this is the first time we actually raced the 4x8 this year,” said Sierazy, who went to state as an alternate as a freshman but didn’t compete. “Usually when I anchored in the regular season I would actually be so far ahead by the time I got the baton that I would just jog. And then we put this kid on our team and we’re going much faster.”
By “this kid” he meant Spencer Martin, the junior who is as versatile a distance runner as Chesterton has. He runs 4x400 anchors in the 52s without training for such a short distance, appears equally proficient at the 800 and 1600 and runs strong 3200 races as well.
At the sectional and regional meets, Martin had splits under 2 minutes for the first time and the second one was 1:57, rounding down to the nearest second. Sierazy had his first sub-2 split at the regional. Roberson and Hundt also ran well and the foursome finished almost a full three seconds ahead of Griffith, which earned the third automatic qualifier.
“Our competitors were really strong today so we knew we had to put something up,” Hundt said of what fueled them to run so well when it mattered the most.
Added Martin:
“We had a lot of time to warm up and really get ready for this. So the preparation for this was so much better than it usually is. Also, it was a great night to run. Yes, it was a little windy. Could it have been slightly better? Yeah, but it was great conditions and we were able to keep our muscles warm.”
The meet was delayed a little and the runners said they benefitted from the extra warmup time.
The 800 can be a tricky race to pace, but if all four runners do that as well as at Valpo, there is reason to believe they can break 8 minutes, even on such a crowded track for the event.
Now that they made it and don’t have a realistic shot to win the event in Indianapolis that doesn’t mean they won’t have motivating factors fueling them. For the three seniors, it’s their only shot running in the ultimate meet, so they want to make the best of it. And then there is the milestone they came so close to achieving, breaking 8 minutes.
The 800 can be a tricky race to pace, but if all four runners do that as well as at Valpo, there is reason to believe they can achieve the milestone, even on such a crowded track for the first running event of the meet, a race scheduled to start at 3:15 p.m. CT.