1 2

(Enlarge) Katie Harman

Graham Bazell and Katie Harman's final memories of high school track will go down as some of their best.

Traveling to Greensboro, N.C., to compete in the Nike Outdoor Nationals June 18-20, the county's two outdoor track Athletes of the Year each set personal records and earned top-five finishes at North Carolina A&T University.

Bazell, competing in the two mile, finished fourth with a time of eight minutes, 56 seconds and Harman, running in the emerging elite 1- and 2-mile races, finished first and sixth respectively.

Other county athletes that finished in the top 20 were Craig Morgan (16th in the emerging elite one mile race) and Josh Bair (20th in the triple jump).

For Bazell, who will attend Stanford University in the fall, Nike Nationals marked the second week in a row breaking nine minutes in the 2-mile.

The week before in Illinois, he ran a time of 8:56.65 to break his previous personal record by nearly eight seconds.

"The competition really helps. The previous week I raced against Solomon (Haile) and at Nike Nationals there were like seven guys all running together until the last lap," Bazell said. "Nationals especially was a tough, physical race. There was a lot of jockeying for position and that back and forth can help pull you along."

Bazell ended up finishing less than a second out of second place and was just seven seconds behind winner Trevor Dunbar.

Harman's top performance was in the mile, where she broke five minutes for the first time in her career. Running in the slower of the two emerging elite heats, Harman posted a winning time of 4:59.16.

"To be honest, my goal was to just finish in the top six," said Harman, who was making her first trip to the Nike Nationals. "I felt like if I could break five (minutes), no matter what place I finished, I would be happy."

As it turned out, Harman, who will run for James Madison University next year, was the only runner in either heat to break five minutes.

"Everything really worked out well ... I ran possibly my best race at the perfect time," Harman said. "Coming down the last straight away and looking up at the big clock, seeing 4:55, 4:56 ... knowing I was going to post my best time ... it felt really good."

Harman then finished sixth in the 2-mile emerging elite race later in the day with a time of 11:21.28, 15 seconds off the pace.

user comments (0)