LAKEWOOD – Whoever displayed the most heart on the final stretch of the 2A boys’ 400 would win the race. That’s according to Peyton’s Caleb Kearse, who won the event.

Kearse repeated as the 400 champion Saturday at Jeffco Stadium and finished in 48.86 seconds, the lone runner to complete his lap sub-49.

“You have to go out hard or you’re not going to be where you need to be,” Kearse said. “Some of those guys were running times in the prelims faster than I was. I knew they were going to be fast and that pushed me.”

The defending champ entered the finals seeded fifth after his 50.86 in the preliminary race. That’s after Kearse started the weekend ranked second in the 400 at 49.51. That didn’t concern Kearse as he said he, “went pretty easy” in his prelim heat to ensure he had enough kick for finals.

Hey, he’s not the reigning – and now two-time – champion for nothing. Kearse used the final 100 meters of the race to pull away from the field and had the energy to stave off his competition on the homestretch.

“This is all heart. You get to that 300 and you know that’s where you have to start kicking,” Kearse said. “That last stretch is how much heart you got. You just have to stress your training. … I do a lot of visualization training so this is kind of what I imagined. I wasn’t surprised, but it felt good to see no one was too close.”