CHARLESTON — Trae Brickner has been there, done that, and he did it again Saturday in the Illinois High School Association boys track and field finals.
The Peoria Christian junior multi-sport athlete set a personal best on the way to a Class 1A 300 hurdles championship in 39.08 seconds, tracking down Sullivan’s Mason Booker in a dramatic finish-line ending in which the latter crossed in 39:12.
“When I first crossed the finish line, it was a sigh of relief,” Brickner said. “I wasn’t sure I was going to get it. I looked at the scoreboard and thought, ‘I can breathe now.’
“It was so cool to stand up on the top of the podium and look into the stands and see all the people who have supported me, helped me, been there. Pretty big moment for me.”
Brickner has had a lot of big moments in his athletic career. The 5-foot-9½ junior is a shooting guard on the Peoria Christian team that went to state and finished third this season. He is a defender on the soccer team that went to state and finished fourth two years ago.
And now track increases his tally to three sports, three state finals, one state championship.
He was one of just four Peoria-area athletes to win state titles Saturday. Delavan sophomore Corie Green won the Class 1A 800 run in 1:55.46. Princeton senior Ian Morris won the 2A discus in 53.58 meters. Bureau Valley senior Landon Hulsing won the 1A discus in 57.19 meters.
“It’s pretty cool,” Brickner said. “Each time at state is a little different. It’s a different group of guys with each sport. This trip to state felt different because it’s the first time here without my brother, Kaleb (who graduated last year). He tagged along on the first day of prelims and that helped.”
Brickner says he started running in seventh grade for fun, and returned in eighth grade to start running hurdles.
“I thought, ‘I want to do this,’ ” Brickner said. “As a high school freshman I started to really work at it. The summer after that my coaches had me training as a decathlete.”
With a decathlete’s grit and his coaches’ training, Brickner stayed in control and executed a plan that paid off. He finished 10th in the 110 hurdles last year, and 15th in the 300 hurdles.
A year later, he is a state champion.
“I’m thankful for my coaches working with me,” Brickner said. “My big focus was working on technique. It paid off.
“Today, my coaches told me to go out strong and try to maintain it and that’s what I tried to do. I knew the second half of my race was the better part. I wasn’t concerned when he (Booker) was ahead of me at the turn. I thought, ‘OK I got to start pushing now.’ And I got him at the very end.”
Every champion and record set: 2025 IHSA boys track and field finals recap
A gold medal for Delavan sophomore
Delavan sophomore Corie Green worked his way through the Class 1A 800 run in 1:55.46 to win the state championship Saturday.
Green started running in middle school, and won five state championships. He got into the game after drawing inspiration from his older sister, Abigail, a collegiate runner.
“I’m exhausted,” he said, while fighting post-race nausea. “I really wanted this, it was such a big goal for me. I won those middle school championships, so it’s been my dream to win a high school state championship. It’s just amazing.”
Green finished 13th in the event at state as a freshman, so his jump to the medal stand could happen again.
School’s out for shot put
Ms. Isenberger was correct.
The English Language Arts teacher at Washington Middle School sentenced Joe Atkins to shot put when she was a track and field coach and he was on the eighth-grade team.
“I was a runner,” Atkins said. “Or I thought I was. But I was pretty big, and she told me I needed to do shot put. Hey, it was the right call.”
The 245-pound Washington senior tossed 19.39 meters to finish second in the state in the Class 3A shot put Saturday. It was the highest finish for any Washington boys athlete at the state finals.
It also was the end of a journey for Atkins, who will throw next year for Illinois State.
“I tried my hardest, just couldn’t catch that top spot, I think I missed it by about 3 feet,” Atkins said. “Not quite what I wanted, I just gotta work harder next year and maybe get some better luck.”
Shot put is Atkins’ lone sport. He was edged by East Moline senior Mike Kpomassy.
Elmwood/Brimfield grabs silver
The Trojans earned a second-place medal in the 4×800 relay, turning in a season-best 8:02.94 ran by Reed Florey, Aiden Faulkner, Kam Stevenson and Darwin Herman.
“I’m really proud of these guys, I’d rate (the performance) 10 out of 10,” said senior Florey, who ran the opening leg and built a lead. “I tried to get a lead and see if I could work with it a little bit.”
It was the eighth consecutive medal in the Class 1A 4×800 for Elmwood, tying its best finish with second place. The program now has 20 medals overall in the 4×800 or 2-mile relay, dating back to 1976.
‘Everyone thinks it’s a punishment’
Elmwood/Brimfield senior Mika Nelson turned in a fourth-place effort in the Class 1A 3200 run with an effort of 9:45.90.
Nelson, who will major in chemical engineering because “I want a job” and will also run track at Milwaukee School of Engineering next year, was a volunteer for the 3200 early in his career.
“I started running it as a sophomore just because no one else wanted to to do it,” he said, grinning. “No one ever wants to run the 3200. Everyone thinks it’s a punishment, so they make the freshman and sophomores run it. I like it, I like the challenge.”
Nelson, a Brimfield High School grad, cut 15-20 seconds off his 3200 effort from last year here. With the 3200 as his only event Saturday, his high school track career is over.
“The tradition of excellence with our team is just crazy,” he said. “We benefit from a great coach, a program with a great history and teammates that push each other, make each other better.”
He came down the stretch trying to catch Gillespie’s Chaz Oberkfell, while holding off a shoulder-to-shoulder finish against Annawan/Wethersfield’s Karson Shrum. He ended up third in that race, but fourth in the final results as Decatur St. Teresa’s Evan Cook slipped into third on a faster heat time.
“I really wanted to get that guy ahead of me,” Nelson said. “But I did OK.”
His sister, Anja, by the way, helped Brimfield/Elmwood softball win Class 1A sectional this weekend.
It’s like riding a bike
The path into running started on a bike trail for Morton senior Christian Harris, a Bradley track and field and cross country commit. He turned in a 4:23.33 effort in the 1600 run to finish third in the Class 2A event Saturday.
“I started running when I was 8, but I had kind of a weird intro,” he said, grinning. “Our family was going out on a group biking outing. When I went into the garage to get my bike, it had a flat tire.
“So they all biked, and I decided to run alongside them.”
He loved it. And the family was stunned when they calculated their 8-year-old had run 7 miles while they biked. He signed up for training with One Motion, and at age 9 ran the 4-mile race in the annual Steamboat Classic in 26 minutes.
“I wanted to sit on people and see how they reacted today,” Harris said of his race strategy. “I lead right away, but the race was really, really slow. When it was over, I had more in the tank and I think I should have gone out earlier.
“No regrets, though. I left it all out there. It’s kind of a bittersweet moment, because I’m ready to move on to the next level, but I’m going to miss running with this team, with these guys.”
Soccer family tree
Limestone junior Logan Smallwood finished second in the Class 2A 400 in :49.26.
Not bad for a kid with a soccer family tree. His father, Daniel, is from South London, England. The Limestone junior is a striker on the Rockets’ soccer team.
“Soccer is big for us,” Logan Smallwood said. “My dad loves it, my grandfather and great grandfather were professional soccer players in Europe.”
Smallwood found an extra gear in the final meters and ran down the top three leaders, pushing himself into the traffic at the finish line.
He came out the other side of it with a medal for second.
“It’s how I run, like I’m sprinting to the ball in a soccer game,” he said. “I have a big kick, and I love hunting down people ahead of me. I really wanted to get ’em.”
Other news from IHSA boys state
Morton senior Cole Rinkenberger finished sixth in the 2A 100, fourth in the 200, and ran on the 4×200 (seventh) and 4×100 (eighth) relays. … Morrison won the Class 1A team title in a blowout. Elmwood/Brimfield finished in a tie for 13th and Peoria Christian and Delavan in a tie for 19th. … Sycamore won the 2A title with 71 points. Morton was sixth (33 points), Princeton eighth, Metamora 20th, Limestone in a tie for 21st. … Winnetka New Trier (45 points) won the 3A state title, edging out Homewood-Flossmoor (40). Washington was 20th.
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men’s basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: IHSA boys state track meet: Peoria reactions, analysis
