Published: May 05, 2009 11:46 pm         

Trio of area teams place in top three

The Northwest Whitfield Lady Bruins’ three-year reign as Region 7-4A track and field champions ended Tuesday at Woodland High School in Cartersville.

Host Woodland scored 138 points while the Lady Bruins finished with 101 and advanced six athletes to next week’s Class 4A state meet in Albany.

“I knew we’d have to have a great meet and Woodland a bad one to win,” Northwest coach Richard Taylor said, “because we didn’t have all the events covered. Looking at the seedings before the meet I thought they would beat us by 15 points or so. As it turned out, they had a great meet and we did pretty well.”

Dalton’s Lady Catamounts, who advanced five girls to the state meet, had 61 points and finished third.

Meanwhile, in the Region 6-3A meet at Carrollton, Southeast finished third with 91 points and set four school records. Carrollton won the title with 148.5 points and Central Carroll had 106 in second place.

In 7-4A, the Lady Bruins’ 4x400 relay team of Taylor Staten, Jenna Williams, Kelsey Kirk and Morgan Williams won with a school-record time of 4:05.35. Northwest also had three individuals winners, including double winner Morgan Williams. She captured the 400-meter run with a time of 57.78 seconds and also claimed the 800 in 2:22.4.

Staten won the pole vault at 8 feet, 6 inches. The Lady Bruins’ Amber Jackson finished third at 7-6, but moved into the second slot behind Staten when the runner-up from Woodland said she would attend a volleyball camp rather than going to the state track meet, Taylor said.

Ieisha White won the 100 hurdles in 16.3 seconds. Other scorers for the Lady Bruins were: Jenna Williams (triple jump, fifth, 33-4; 800, fifth, 2:30); Staten (triple jump, sixth, 32-7); White (discus, eighth, 97-6); Sarah Boyd (3,200, fifth, 13:38); 400 (Kirk, seventh, 1:02.7); Allie Mullins (100 hurdles, eighth, 17.1).

For the Lady Cats, Carina Nieto qualified for state in two events, finishing second in the 3,200 in 12:47 and the 1,600 in 5:37.

Anna Lee Houston was second in the 400 at 60.51 and Paris Love placed second in the 200 at 26.81. Dalton’s 4x100 relay team of Brandi Joubert, Breana Bonds, Houston and Love took second with a time of 50.46.

“It’s not easy qualifying for state,” Lady Cats coach Pam Brackett said. “Especially in two events. You don’t have much time for rest. It’s pretty intense in the finals, but I’m proud of all the girls.”

Southeast’s third-place finish was boosted by first-place results from Lacie Roberson (shot put, 35-4, school record) Briana Sosebee (discus, 112-7 1/2, school record) and Shelby McFarland (1,600, 5:38, personal best), who also qualified for state in the 800 with a second-place finish in 2:27.

Hillary Nevad (triple jump, second, 34-5 1/4) also qualified for the 3A state meet, which is held in Albany alongside the other classifications.

Lady Raiders coach Chad Brewer, who’s in his seventh season, credited a combination of factors for this year’s success.

“Our middle school coaches, Scott Houston at Valley Point and Jimmy Bethune at Eastbrook, have done a great job in building those programs,” Brewer said. “And we’ve been lucky enough just to keep (top athletes) out, because we’ve got a lot of girls who are two- and three-sport athletes and a lot of times they’ll let track go to focus on other sports. That’s made a huge difference.”

Brewer — who noted that the Lady Raiders finished in the top three among teams despite not competing in pole vault — said parental support is at an all-time in his coaching tenure, too, and that’s also been key.

Other scoring efforts for Southeast were: Jelisa Griffin (200, third, 26.71, school record; 100, fifth, 12.91, personal best), Sosebee (triple jump, fifth, 30-9), Ashley Strong (shot put, fifth, 31-11 1/2), Brianna Coppock (long jump, sixth, 14-11), Ediht Azua (110 hurdles, sixth, 20.85; 300 hurdles, seventh, 54.81) and Roberson (long jump, eighth, 13-11).

The 4x100 relay team of Griffin, Nevad, Amber Young and Coppock turned in a school-record time of 51.12 to finish third, while the 4x400 team of Sosebee, McFarland, Nevad and Young was also third in 4:23.

After the Lady Raiders — who won the 6A-3A sub-region meet last week at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe — Heritage-Catoosa placed fourth with 76.5 and was followed by LFO with 60.5, Cedartown 46, Ringgold 33.5, Cartersville 26, LaFayette 20 and Ridgeland 10. Haralson County failed to score.

Murray County, which also competed in the 7-4A meet, did not qualify any athletes for state. Liz Burciaga placed fourth in the 200 at 26.97 and sixth in the 100 with a time of 13.4.

Lady Indians coach Sam Young did not know his team’s final points or place, since all teams’ results were not announced on Tuesday.

Varsity golf

Christian Heritage’s boys closed their first year of varsity golf at the GISA Class 2A state tournament, but they’ll have to wait a day or two to find out where they placed.

The Lions were the only team among 16 schools in the tourney — held at Vidalia’s Rocky Creek Golf Club — to finish before inclement weather forced everyone off the course. The tourney will resume at 9 a.m. today, Christian Heritage coach Gary Whaley said.

Christian Heritage’s 369, three strokes more than the score the Lions shot while winning last week’s Region 4-2A tourney, was led by Ty Whaley’s 82 and an 83 from Cole Townsend. A.J. Hooper added a 98 and Will Clark a 106 for the team’s other counting rounds in the five-play, four-score format.

“We definitely wanted to do better,” coach Whaley said. “... It was not an overly long course, but there was a lot of water, a lot of trees and traps. We’d need to play that course maybe once or twice to get used to where to hit and not hit it.”

Three other teams also had four of their five golfers who had completed their rounds, but Whaley wasn’t sure if those teams would return to action. The Lions won’t because their four golfers who finished would have been the team’s counted scores no matter the result of the fifth.

     

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