Brophy Track claims first ever state championship

By Justin Janssen '11

During the 82 years since Brophy College Prep opened in 1928, the Broncos had never hung a state championship banner in track.

"Banner Wall" on the south side of Robson Gymnasium is filled with state championships, but none had ever come in track.

A full season's worth of hard work paid off May 11 and 14 at Mesa Community College, as Brophy finally ended the championship drought in track.

Distance runner Tommy Williams '11 told The East Valley Tribune, "We got in the room and said, 'guys, we can win a state championship.' And we calculated the maximum score in each event, so we were all motivated to perform our best to score as much as possible."

Williams capped off his Brophy career with an individual title in the 800 meter (1:55.48).

Williams, the 2010 5A-I 1600 meter champion, is also Brophy's all-time record holder in the 800 meter.

Devon Allen '13 didn't win a race, but may have been the meet MVP as he led the Broncos with 27 of the team's 77 points scored.

Allen placed second in the 110 meter hurdles (13.90), second in the 200 meter (21.50), third in the 100 meter dash (10.90), and fourth in the 400 meter (48.88).

Allen set the team sophomore 110 meter hurdle record. It's the sixth fastest 110 meter hurdle in Arizona prep history.

His 200 meter dash time is a sophomore and school record.

Allen lost three events to Trae Armstrong of Deer Valley, who won the 100, 200, 400, and 4 X 400.

Will Firth (first) '11 had to settle for two second place finishes in the state meet.

In the two mile, Firth (9:32.39) and Williams (9:33.72) finished second and third to Yuma Cibola's Bernie Montoya, but picked up 14 valuable points in the race.

Scoring in the state meet is 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1, meaning the victor picks up 10 points, runner up earns eight points, etc.

Firth (4:15.53) and Williams (4:19.01) finished second and third, respectively, in the mile to a man who lost his shoe in the final lap.

Bernie Montoya lost his right shoe, but still persevered to hold off Brophy's distance runners.

"I got scared for a moment," Montoya said to The Arizona Republic. "But this is the state title that I could actually lose. That last lap, it was hurting."

Montoya had to pull out of the half mile race because of the pain he suffered in the mile.

James Harper '12 earned three points for his high jump of 6-4. Fourth through eighth place all cleared that height.

Josh Dennard '11 picked up two points in the long jump (21-10).

Brophy needed almost all those points as the defending state champion Chandler Wolves scored 73.

Chandler scored 36 points in the field events, including Michael Okonkwo winning the high jump (6'10).

But Chandler was disqualified in the 4 X 400 race; they were projected to finish third.

A third place finish would have given the Wolves six points, enough to overtake Brophy.

Five Brophy school records were set at the meet (first three are above).

The 4 X 800 team composed of Williams, Firth, Tanner Brown '12, and Jack Rubenzer '13 (7:56.77) set a Bronco record, but still finished fifth.

The 4 X 100 team with Anthony Broglia '11, Josh Dennard '11, Robert Relf '13, and D'Amayi Grayer '13, (42.36) placed sixth, but it was enough to break a school record.