CALIFORNIA STATE MEET

Despite fear of hamstring tear in right leg, San Jose State-bound Walker scores in four events, including 400 and 4x100 victories, lifting Central to one-point triumph over Upland to secure first California boys team crown in program history

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

CLOVIS, Calif. – At around 6:10 p.m. Pacific time Saturday night, Fresno Central senior Jeremiah Walker was lying on a track, barely able to rise and needing serious help to stand on what appeared to be a badly hurt right leg.

Less than an hour later, he won the state championship in the 400 meters. Later in the 200, the San Jose State signee scored three important points. And a little later, just after 10 p.m., Walker’s rally on the anchor leg of the 4x400 relay to secure a runner-up finish had given Central the team state championship, by all of one point.

RESULTS | INTERVIEWS | PHOTOS by Jimmy Su

Walker’s perseverance was all the difference Saturday night as Central edged Upland, 41 points to 40, to win the boys title in Veterans Memorial Stadium at Buchanan High.

The girls team race was almost as close, with Gardena Serra’s 37 points lifting it past Clovis North, which scored 32.

It was Central’s first state track championship, though it continued recent state-wide success for the Central Section.

In the state meet’s last running in 2019 – fears connected to the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the last two state meets – Clovis North’s boys and Clovis Buchanan’s girls won for a Central Section sweep.

“Nothing is impossible,” Walker said afterward. “If you put your mind to it, you can get through it, and you can finish it.”

One might not believe that. But after watching what Walker did Saturday, it would be even harder to doubt.

Central led off the first boys event of Saturday’s final as a favorite in the 4x100 relay, and the Grizzlies outran Gardena Serra and junior anchor Rodrick Pleasant to win in 41.36 seconds.

“I had to give it everything I got, so I did,” said junior relay anchor Imari Conley, who had the daunting task of holding off Pleasant, as Serra clocked 41.50.

At that moment, the victory gave Central its first state title since Kristie Johnson had won the 800 in 1994 and 1995. Johnson, ironically, had previously coached the Grizzlies and was once a P.E. teacher for Cameron Tarver, the relay’s second runner.

As Conley crossed the finish line, though, Walker went down on the track after his opening run. At first, he called it a cramp. After Saturday night’s racing was done, he said it was more serious.

“I ripped it,” he said. “It’s tore. I tore my hamstring, the muscle in my hamstring.”

Walker was tended to for a few minutes before getting up, unable to put any weight on his right leg. Someone went and got him crutches, and then he was able to slowly make his way off the track as concerned teammates came by to check on him.

Most observing, at that point, seemed to believe he was done for the evening. Everyone, that was, except for Walker.

“Oh, I’ll be fine for the 400,” he told a friend.

Turns out he was right.

He ran the 400 and wound up winning, and it wasn’t easy.

Walker clocked a time of 47.49 seconds, barely edging West Ranch senior Christopher Goode, Granada Hills junior Dijon Stanley, and La Mesa Helix junior Adren Parker (47.68). Goode and Stanley both ran 47.51. Goode was credited with second in 47.501 and Stanley took third in 47.510.

“I’ve been going through and I’ve been watching a lot of highlights in the 400,” Walker said. “I was talking to my coach, and I was like, ‘Coach, I don’t know how these guys, I don’t know how they run this 400, but their 200 times don’t add up,” Walker said. “A lot of these guys are built with muscle, and I’m mainly built with speed. So I said, ‘All I got to do is go out there and beat them with speed.’ I know I don’t have the muscles, I’m a little skinny guy. I will always beat them with speed.”

Meanwhile, based on the strength of its unparalleled hurdles depth, Upland was beginning to look like it might get the state crown on the boys side.

Kai Graves-Blanks (wind-aided 13.75) and Davis Davis-Lyric (14.13) went 1-2 in the 110 hurdles for 18 points.

Senior DeQuan January fell and was disqualified while near the lead, preventing the Highlanders from completing what would have been the first 1-2-3 finish in any event by one team in state history.

In the 300 hurdles, senior Delaney Crawford (37.11) and Graves-Blanks (37.33) went 1-2 for another 18 points. Upland was beginning to think about its own improbable state title before the closing events.

Walker went back out and placed sixth in the 200 in 21.42, with Pleasant winning in a wind-aided 20.56 for his second individual state championship of the day; he also won the 100 in a wind-aided 10.30.

And the three points Walker scored, supporting a third-place effort from Tarver in 21.28, wound up crucial.

Walker got the baton with Central third place in the meet-closing 4x400 relay. But he kept charging, catching Long Beach Wilson in the last 100 meters, as Central finished in 3:14.78 behind first-time champion Cathedral in 3:13.87.

And, as a team, that second-place finish gave the Grizzlies eight points, which were just enough for the state title.

After Central had been announced as the champion afterward, Walker was handed the team trophy in the middle of an interview. It seemed most appropriate given what he accomplished.

“To be honest, I put my team first,” he said. “And I love these guys to death. I really love this team to death, and to be doing this means a lot. I gotta put my team first.”

Quitting, he said, was never an option after the 4x100.

“I’ve got to show everybody what I’m made of, what I came to do. Our goal was to come to win state. And I was all like, ‘I can’t give up now.’ Because these guys, they really depend on me.”