Alexis Buckhaults Earns Some Redemption
Last weekend, under similar conditions at the Fountain-Fort Carson Invitational, Alexis Buckhaults hit a hurdle about two-thirds of the way through the 100 meter hurdles and went sprawling onto the track. An almost certain event title was lost in an instant.
There would be no repetition of that scenario on Friday.
It took an impressive seven heats to work all the way through prelims, but Buckhaults' time of 15.01 stood tall as the best time in prelims, giving her lane 4 for finals. Only that best time came with an asterisk. Buckhaults' heat 7 was one of two heats that was not accompanied with a legal wind. Not that she needed the time for state qualifying, though.
If there was any doubt about the legitimacy of that 15.01, though, all doubts were erased in finals. Buckhaults went 14.79 (this time -0.3) to claim the event title. Mary McCowen, into whose lane Buckhaults had fallen last week, went 15.76 for second. This week, it was only a little air turbulence Buckhaults left in McCowen's lane.
In her only other individual event of the day, Buckhaults went 34-4 to claim third in the triple jump.