WICHITA — Brett Holloway and Hadley Splechter were used to this.
The Yates Center senior and freshman duo raced side-by-side around the oval, each making sure that they kept each other’s pace and stayed right with each other.
This scene has played out hundreds of times the past few years around the Yates Center football field or just in the side streets around town, but now it was happening on Kansas high school track’s biggest stage.
The duo jumped out to the lead in the 3200-meter run and led the first half of the race side-by-side.
“At a state meet, you want to make sure you get out there in front, because if you don’t, you are going to get trapped in and you start pacing yourself with the wrong type of people,” Holloway said. “We know each other so we knew our paces and we were paying attention to times. We were just running the times we knew we wanted to run and we just let everyone else try and catch up.”
The field, including champion Kyler True of Olpe, eventually caught up to the Wildcat pair, but both Yates Center runners were still able to earn medals. Splechter took fourth and Holloway finished seventh.
“It was a milestone, a senior going out getting medals and a freshman coming in getting medals, so it is not like we are losing any quality there,” Holloway said.
Still, the team will have a big transition to go through when it has to replace Holloway.
Holloway has done it all for the Wildcats in his four years with the team, competing in anything from the 400-meters to the two-mile and also competing in the field, excelling in the triple jump.
“He can run anything,” Yates Center coach Jennie Davis said. “He anchors the 4×400, which isn’t really a distance event, it is more of a sprinting event. Brett is definitely a jack-of-all-trades. He is someone that if I needed someone to run the 4×100, he could do it and we’d still have roughly the same time.”
Earlier this season, Holloway even had the opportunity to try something that his school had never done before and now he holds the school record in the steeple chase.
“He has never hurdled a day in his life,” Davis said. “He wanted to go out and do the steeple chase, so he went out and did it. Brett is the guy that if we need something, he is willing to step in that position and do it.
In addition to his medal in the two-mile, Holloway wrapped up his high school career with a seventh-place finish in the 800-meter run. He anchored the 4×800 relay as well, which took fourth-place.
“That was the most medals he has ever gotten at state, so for him that was exciting and a great way to go out,” Wildcat coach Davis said. “He was on the sideline for that 4×800, yelling and encouraging his teammates and pushing them along. He knew that if they could keep it close, he would close it out.”
Holloway’s leadership has also been invaluable to Davis’ young team this season and no Wildcat has absorbed more of the knowledge that Holloway has shared than Splechter.
The freshman has trained with Holloway ever since he began middle school track and field and he has certainly learned plenty from the veteran runner.
