Woodward Academy celebrating their team title on graduation day
Girls: Woodward explodes as expected
Woodward came into this season as the heavy favorites for the 6A crown. And they delivered all season long, especially when it counted the most. Anybody who scores over 100 points is a really strong track and field team, but to score that many in one of the biggest classifications in the state takes. special squad. I don't know what it is that draws this sort of talent to Woodward, but they clearly know how to piece it all together. As expected, they were dominant in the sprints, with Chelsea Williams and Taylor Gullatte going 1-2 and 1-3 in the 200 and 100. On top of that Madison Gardner went 1-5 in the 400 and 200. That's right, they scored 22 points, over 1/5th of their total, in the 200 alone. Sydney Glee and Kenyah Conner also impressed with Glee winning the 300 hurdles and taking 3rd in the 100 while Conner was runner up in the fastest 800 ever in a Georgia state meet with her time of 2:08.52. Those five superstars accounted for most of their points when you count their contributions on the relays where Woodward won the 4x1, was 4th in the 4x2, and won the 4x4.
Lakeside, Evans finished a very impressive runner up in this meet. Most years we would be talking about Lakeside scoring 62 to Alexander's 56 in an incredible team battle. And it really was an incredible team battle. Just not for the win this year. But it doesn't take away what these two schools did. Scoring over 50 at state will pretty much always put you on the podium. Some years it's good enough to win, just not when you're up against a once in a lifetime team like Woodward. Lakeside had a monster talent in the hurdles with Kennedy Myers who won the 100 and finished 3rd in the 300. They also had Rikki Carver win the long jump and finish 4th in the triple jump. Paris Coleman also was 5th in the long jump and 4th in the 100 hurdles while Suparna Suhag was 3rd in the pole vault. And in the relays they were runner up in both the 4x1 and 4x4, what a team effort. Alexander got almost all of their points in the field events as the clear day 1 leader with Aseye Srigboh winning the high jump, finishing 3rd in the triple, and 7th in the long. Alisa Gordon won the triple and was 3rd in the long jump while Morgan Willingham was 5th in the triple jump.They also got some big throws points with Jasmine Ramsey in the discus and Kinsley Williams in the shot put. They help secure 3rd place with some distance points as Cortney Adams was 4th in the 800 and Emily McDonald was 5th in the 3200.
You can't talk about the other individual stars of this meet without mentioning Oluwatosin Awoleye who won the 800 in a new #2 all time performance of 2:05.55. Ella Stone also finished a strong 3rd place in 2:12.68 while taking 5th in the 1600 in 5:03. And speaking of the 1600, that field was loaded! Claire Petersen showed she was the class of 6A distance girls this spring with her wins in the 1600 and 3200, but the 2nd-8th place performances in these races were all very impressive. Josie hutchinson showed up ready to break up the "Claire bowl" this weekend as she took 2nd in both with PR's of 4:58 and 10:54. Claire Shelton was 3rd with 4:58 and 10:58. In the sprints Sophia Richard was strong placing 2nd in the 100 and 4th in the 200 while Maddison Brister was 2-6 and Kiley Mitchell was 3rd in both the 400 and 200. Sole Bailey and Sarah Head took strong runner up finshes in the hurdle races. Langston Hughes and Etowah went 1-2 in the 4x200 while Blessed Trinity and Marist went 1-2 in the 4x800. Lindsey Magaw defeated Ansley Cho in a crazy intense pole vault competition while Bailee Williams won the shot put and Lexie Durban won the discus.
Boys: Langston Hughes just too talented and too deep
They were just too good. We knew they were just too good. Marist, Alpharetta, and Shiloh took their shots at them anyway. And they should all be commended for it. Those are 3 stellar programs with elite athletes. But Langston Hughes deserves their parade. The best thing I can think of that is a summary of how good this team is happened in the 4x100m prelims. Something bad happened with their 2nd exchange. Somebody went down. He did a somersault. Other teams saw blood in the water and tried to capitalize. But it didn't matter. They rebounded, popped back up, caught up on the curve, and did what they needed to do in the final straight to make the finals. And then went on to win the relay going away in the finals, not repeating their mistake. There was just too much talent on this team to fail. And a special group like that doesn't come around often. The easiest place to start would be with state record holder and 2x state champion Maurice Gleaton who did his job by winning the 100 and 200. But this team is so much more than just one superstar sprinter. Kani Smith scored in the 400 and Thomas Fitzgerald scored in the 300 hurdles. Malachi Yehudah was 2nd in the high jump and Christian Langford was 3rd in the long jump. But most importantly their relays were on point. They won the 4x1 and 4x2 and took 3rd in the 4x4 when they already had the team title wrapped up. This team was a team of destiny.
Behind them were two teams that probably wished they could combine forces. Marist was mostly led by two distance runners. Tommy Latham is...the goat. There's just no other way to say it. He easily won the 3200 and then came back the next day and set a new state record, by himself, in the 1600. Behind him in that race was Liam Hanemann who was 2nd in both the 1600 and the 800. Huge team points. They also got big points from Andrew Stricklin who placed 3rd in the 3200 and 7th in the 1600. Their 4x800 relay team was runner up as well. Alpharetta on the other hand was relying heavily on their hurdlers. Joseph Williams and Vincent Nnanna went 1-3 in the 110 and 2-1 in the 300 hurdles. Huge team points. Yoel Glover also got some big points in the 400 and their 4x400 relay team took home the gold. It just wasn't enough. Shiloh took 4th thanks to big efforts from Marcus Thompson in the triple jump, Elijah Coles in the high jump and pole vault, and Corey Harris who had the coolest double of the weekend after placing 5th in the pole vault and 3rd in the 800.
Most of the track champions have already been mentioned in the team write up. But Matthew Strickland defeated Arlen Epps in the 400 while Conner Proffitt got his lone state title in the 800 after taking 4th in the 1600 and 5th in the 3200, though he did lead his team to the win in the 4x800. Dermot Maloney was impressive in the distance taking 2nd in the 3200 and 3rd in the 1600 while Zachary Morgan did well in the sprints taking 2nd in the 200 and 3rd in the 100. In the field, Luke Stradley and Nicolas Crosswhite were the stars. Stradley was 1-1-2 in the long jump, high jump, and triple jump while Crosswhite was 4-3-1. Two field event stars giving it their all. Grayson Venezia proved it was his turn as he won the pole vault by a foot while Tahir Hines and Brad Chosewood took home the throwing crowns. Nathaniel Williams was also impressive placing 2nd and 3rd in the discus and shot put.