It was a different runner in another close race for the 1,600 title, but the results were the same, as Lowe pulled away from his closest competitor and claimed the gold once again. He also defended his 3,200 championship, this time by a much larger margin than his state victory last year, to close out his high school career with two more long-distance titles.
The wins brought Lowe’s state gold medal count to seven, as the Oklahoma State-bound athlete competed with fellow Carroll long distance runners C.J. Brown and Tara Upshaw on May 10 at the University of Texas in Austin’s Mike A. Myers Stadium.
"Knowing it was going to be my last race in high school, I wanted to finish it out well and give it all that I had," said Lowe, who has five gold medals in track and two in cross country, as well as two silver medals to boot. "I wanted to be happy with whatever I’d done."
Lowe outlasted Michael Cook of Magnolia in the 1,600, edging the runner out with a time of four minutes, 6.87 seconds to Cook’s 4:08.88. Last year, it was teammate Brown, who finished just over 3 ½ seconds behind him.
Lowe blew the 3,200 race wide open, winning with a time of 8:53.22 that was better than 22 seconds in front of Conroe runner Reed Connor’s second-place finish. In 2007, Lowe won the two-mile race by just 6 ½ seconds.
Lowe also improved on both his state times from last year, dropping his mile time by 2 ½ seconds and besting his two-mile finish by over six seconds.
"It’s a very fitting ending," said Robert Ondrasek, Carroll distance track coach and Lowe’s cross country coach. "It’s the result of a lot of hard work in a great career. Seven gold medals is a great career."
Brown, Lowe’s teammate that helped the boys to a second-place finish at the state cross country meet last November, did not enjoy the same success he had at last year’s state track meet. Instead of finishing a close second in the 1,600, Brown took fifth with a time of 4:15.69. He repeated his sixth-place finish in the 3,200 at state, but improved that time by 11 seconds over last year.
Brown has established himself as one of the top runners in the state over the last couple of years, and Lowe said he expects his teammate to carry the cross country and distance track teams’ torch as a senior next year.
"He’s ready for it," Lowe said. "He’s been in the big meets at cross country and track. I wish him the best of luck. He just needs to carry those over to next year and finish it out strong."
Meanwhile, girls distance runner Tara Upshaw will return as a senior next season as well. A star on a Carroll girls cross country team that has won three state titles in a row, Upshaw was making her first trip to the state track meet after missing her first two years due to injuries in the spring.
Upshaw finished sixth in both the 1,600 (5:09.27) and 3,200 (11:17.50). She finished one place ahead of District 5-5A opponent Ali Nielson in the 1,600, as Nielson finished second in the 3,200.
"She’s improved," Carroll girls track coach Justin Leonard said of Upshaw. "Each week, she went out and competed and kept making it to the next level after each meet. She was aiming for state and made it.
"Next year, she’ll just come in and refocus and try to build off what she did this year," he said.
As one phase of Lowe’s running career comes to an end, he prepares for the next one that begins at Oklahoma State. The success he enjoyed at Carroll should give him a leg up, he said.
"This is going to help me even more for college," he said. "The training, knowing how much you have to work and time it takes, the work ethic, setting goals and meeting them … you try to come back each year and get better in each race."