Just weeks ago, the Proctor 4×400 team ran the second fastest time in school history, only two seconds behind a team with one of the greatest runners the state has ever seen.

“Throughout the year, we go through top 20 list,” said Zak McPhee, a recent Proctor High School graduate. “Naturally, we just had to go and look and find out what the other [records] were. Then we saw this record, and we were like, there is no possible way we’re going to touch that. That one’s never getting touched.”

When the proctor 4×400 team lined up at the state meet, there were no thoughts of touching Garry Bjorklund’s record.

The blazing time of 3:24.6 was something that just weeks prior, stood comfortably at the top of the Proctor record books.

But then, these 2024 Rails came together, and had something to prove.

laykn Lyons
“This is the fastest I’ve ever ran,” said Sophomore Laykn Lyons, who started off the race. “I was giving everything. When I passed off to Gavin, I actually almost didn’t have enough arm strength to lift my arm up and hand it off.”

Gavin Tabbert was next to run.

“I kind of got it and I was like, I just got to go,” said Tabbert. “I just went and gave everything I had. I don’t really remember what happened. I just started sprinting.”

“I was just trying to keep us in the pack,” said McPhee, who came third in the order. “I’m just trying to keep us in some sort of contest with the other teams and just kind of hold my ground.”

Lastly was Cameron Pease, the anchor.

“I just tried to get us across the finish line in the best position we can, whether that’s sitting right behind the first place guy and passing him right at the end or trying to get out fast and keep that lead.”

These Rails, who finished just two seconds shy of the all time Proctor record, also finished in sixth at the state meet. The record that couldn’t be touched stayed put in the history books, but not without a bit of a scare.

“The 4×4 record is definitely probably the second toughest record to get,” said Pease. “But that didn’t deter us. We thought we could reach that. So we pushed for that.”

“We ran a PR. Everyone ran really fast. We ran really well. We all kind of had that goal, obviously, we wanted to do first. But we were really satisfied with how we did. We performed pretty well as a team,” said Tabbert.