ABILENE — With Mother Nature doing her best to interfere with sporting events across the Big Country this week, area athletes still managed to gather on Friday at Abilene Christian University for the UIL 3A Region I and II-1A Track and Field Championships. 

The schedule wasn’t exactly as originally scheduled at Elmer Gray Stadium, with all field events bumped to Saturday to escape inclement weather and running preliminaries bumped to late Friday evening. 

There was, however, an opportunity for a pair of area athletes to punch their tickets to the state meet in the 1A  girls and boys 3200 meters, with Jayton’s Jace Chisum and Roby’s Camden Lummus both taking regional gold at 11:49.38 and 9:51.21 respectively.