Thursday, March 3, 2011

Watching till sundown at the Lincoln Home Track Meet

"What was his time?"


"What was his time?"


They were asking about Lachaddrick Ellis's 100-meter dash time at the Lincoln High Home Meet in Tallahassee on Tuesday afternoon, 1 March 2011. After the first section of the boys' 100m, coaches kept dropping by Chris Sumner's timing tent and asking just how fast Ellis had run. The Taylor County sprinter had been clocked at 10.70, just ahead of Leon's Juan Neloms at 10.88.


"There was too much wind, anyway," one coach commented.


Maybe. Or maybe not. I don't know if there was any wind-gauge at the meet other than the American flag, and sometimes the star-spangled banner was hanging limp and at other times it was horizontal in the breeze. As to what the flag was doing when Ellis and Neloms were racing, you're going to have to ask someone who wasn't watching the track.


Lincoln's Raven Diggs won the earlier girls' 100m, running 12.71 to the 12.97 of North Florida Christian's Darrielle McQueen. Between the two events 98 athletes ran the 100-meter dash; with only six lanes on Lincoln's track this meant that there were 19 sections of the sprint. Have I used the too much of a good thing line lately? Well, this was quite nearly too much of a good thing. At least there were no false starts. And I was impressed that Sumner came up with times for each of the 98 sprinters.


Action on the track had started with the 4 x 800-meter relay. Lincoln took the lead with a strong first leg, but relinquished the front spot to North Florida Christian (Chelsy Diekman, Alana Townshend, Kayla Hudson, and Nicole McClemore) on the second leg. By the third leg Leon (Allyson Alonso, Brooke Eubanks, Autumn Wable, and Jackie Gutierrez) had caught North Florida Christian, and the Lions moved into the lead on the anchor leg. Leon went on to win in 11:01.21, while Wakulla (Chelsea Thompson, Emily McCullers, Raychel Gray, and Marty Wiedeman) moved up to finish second at 11:14.47. North Florida Christian fell back to third in 11:27.90.


"I can't get a team under nine minutes anymore!" moaned one coach during the boys' 4 x 800m relay. It wouldn't have mattered, coach; Leon had two teams under 9:00 in the relay. The Leon "A" team (Riley Doherty, John Hazleton, Brian Bowden, and Justin Dixon) won the relay in 8:39.01, with the Lion's "B" squad the next team across the line. The official second place went to Rickards (Malchom Ford, Damian Farmer, Kentron James, and Jalen Ashby); the Raider edged out East Gadsden (Johnny Thomas, Bryan Bethel, Javarious Johnson, and Janorriss Cunningham) 9:04.78 to 9:04.80.


Only five lanes were open for the short hurdle races, but four sections were enough to get through both the girls' and the boys' events. Leon's Bree Ritter ran 17.72 to win the girls' 100-meter hurdles, beating out Lakeshia Raines (18.06) of Lincoln. Taylor County's Shea Horner was third in 19.23. In the boys' 110-meter hurdles, Godby's Eddie St. Hilaire outleaned Jefferson County's Marvin Seabrooks for the title, 16.10 to 16.13, with Taylor County's Brion Scott third in 16.65.


A mob showed up for the 1600-meter run, and both the girls' race and the boys' race had to be run in sections. In the girls' race, Florida State University School's Brionnah Kreps led for half the race. However, it was the first half, and Leon's Autumn Wable took over the lead for the half of the race that included the finish line. Wable ran 5:53.96 for the win, with Kreps second in 5:59.13. Wakulla's Cora Atkinson placed third at 6:00.18.


In the boys' 1600-meter run, Lincoln's Trevor Touchton led the first lap. And the second lap. And the third lap. Touchton, in fact, led the whole race from wire-to-wire, winning in 4:29.37. Behind Touchton, though, the race for second stayed quite close. Lincoln's Jacob Slupecki led the pursuit early, with some help from Leon's Riley Doherty on the second and third lap. On the last lap, Slupecki, Doherty, Leon's John Hazleton, and Godby's Dieumy Duclos were all in close contention for the runner-up spot. Slupecki opened up a gap, but Hazleton came roaring back on the homestretch. At the finish line, though, Slupecki had held off Hazleton for second, 4:37.23 to 4:37.31. Duclos was behind them in fourth at 4:39.46, trailed by Doherty (5th, 4:41.99).


After the second section of the boys' 1600 there was still plenty of track and field ahead, but it was too dark to take pictures so I packed up the camera and went home. I missed some good athletics, but any day that I get to see four sections of the 1600 I count as a win.


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Posted by Herb Wills at 8:50 PM
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