To make it to the second day of the Class ‘AA’ state track and field meet, which takes place Friday and Saturday at Hamline University, all of Austin’s runners will probably have to lower their times.

But that’s nothing new, as all three qualifiers ran their best times of the season in the Section 1AA meet to get to state.

Three of the runners are seniors — Jessica Webber, Ryan Duren, and Will Hagan — and have no choice but to leave it all out on the track.

“It’s your last run,” said Hagan, who is on the state qualifying 1600-meter relay team. “Go big or go home. If we don’t make finals we’re done. So we’ve gotta run faster.”

Sophomore Will Darling picked up his pace to take about a second off his 110-hurdles time at the Section 1AA meet. But he still probably needs to take off some time to make it to Saturday.

“(At sections), my first few hurdles were a little iffy and my last one was a definitely real bad, so I can take a second off of that, which would be pretty nice,” Will Darling said.

Will Darling looks forward to running against some fast competition and he hopes to take notes to improve his times in the future. He also hopes to advance to Saturday, but he is pleased with making it this far.

“With Blake (Wageman) being gone, it is kind of hard to fill his shoes. But making it sophomore year puts me up there and I’m pretty proud of it,” Will Darling said.

The 1600-meter relay team includes seniors Duren and Hagan, and sophomores Tim Erickson, and Henry Darling.

It finally brought it’s time down in the sectional meet after a season-long struggle. Now it hopes to bring it down lower.

“Dropping two seconds was a huge boost because we were stuck at 3:29 for so long,” said Erickson, who anchors the relay, said. “Now we’ve just gotta get to 3:25. But our ultimate goal is to get the school record, which would be in the 3:23s.”

Duren is looking forward to running in front of a big crowd at Hamline.

“We know we’re kind of underdogs a little bit and that gets us more jacked up,” he said. “I don’t want to leave any regrets that I could’ve gone harder. I want to do my best for the guys and our town.”

Besides the two sophomores in the race, sophomore Jacob Bentley is an alternate for the relay team.

“It should be a good experience for the sophomores,” Hagan said. “They’ve got a great opportunity and we’re just glad we could get there for them.”

For hurdler Jessica Webber, the state meet is a familiar place for her as she this is her fourth straight trip. Webber will run in the 100-meter hurdles and the 300-meter hurdles at state. She’s never been to the finals yet in her career.

“I know she’s really motivated because she hasn’t made finals yet and that’s really a goal of hers to make the finals,” Austin head girls track coach Nancy Jones said. “I think she has the best shot to drop her 300 time. In the 100 she can drop it a little bit, but she’s got pretty good technique and it’s a little tougher to make a huge drop in. The one advantage she has is having been there, the nerve issue should be a less.”

Jones will miss Webber’s impact next season.

“It’s hard to see an athlete like her graduate. Both her and Magie Darling have been varsity runners since they were in eighth grade,” she said.

The Class ‘AA’ preliminaries will start at 9 a.m. Friday and the finals will take place 9 a.m. Saturday.

The top nine athletes in the preliminary of each event will advance to compete Saturday.