Area teams optimistic after HVA Invitational
All three area high school track coaches left the Hardin Valley Invitational late Saturday afternoon with high hopes for the 2016 season.
“We always show up. We always run and we always do pretty well,” Hawks coach Bryan Brown said after watching his girls team win the event for the second time in three years. I had some substitutes running on our relay teams and I’m really proud of those kids.
“Everybody who came in here today knew where I was going to run my kids and my kids ran and competed very well.
New Farragut coach Kia Id-Deen was also pleased after Saturday’s meet.
“I was really happy to see our kids really compete for the first time in a good meet against some quality competition,” Id-Deen said. “This was our first real meet of the season. We had a practice meet and then we had spring break.
“This was a good meet and Bryan Brown does a great job running it. We had a lot of our athletes set personal records and now we can go full force into the season. This was a good start to our season. We have a lot of work to do between now and May. We want to go to state but I’m really pleased.”
Bearden coach Patty Tracy-Thewes was also happy.
“We had an early meet on Tuesday where we worked out all of the kinks,” she said. “We had some good marks today and this was a good start for us. We’re a young team and we have some knew kids. We’re up to 90 athletes but we’re going to have to stay healthy.
Bearden was the top area boys team at Saturday’s meet. The Bulldogs finished sixth with 39 points. Kingsport Dobyns-Bennett won the boys competition with 77 points. Cookeville was second (49), followed by Sevier County (43), Daniel Boone (43), Jefferson County (42) and Bearden. Hardin Valley was 12th with 27 points while the Admirals came in 20th with 11 points.
Hardin Valley’s girls, meanwhile, scored 123 points and beat runner-up West High by 60 points. Kingsport Dobyns-Bennett was third (56) and Jefferson County took fourth with 50 points. Farragut took 10th (28 points) and Bearden came in 14th and scored 17 points.
Lizzie Davis had a big day for HVA. She won the high jump with a leap of 5 feet, 2 inches and placed fifth in the triple jump (32-06). Davis took third in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 48.75 seconds.
Davis was also a member of Hardin Valley’s 4x 400 relay team that took third (4:12.67). There, she teamed with Gia Faoro, Kensi Gray and Neyasha Honorable.
Farragut was seventh in the girls 4x400 relay as the combination of Miranda Burt, Morgan Carbaugh, Emilie Guigou and Heather Winter posted a time of 4:33.08.
Farragut’s Destiny Carey won the girls shot put (40-05.50) and placed third in the discus with a throw of 94-09.
She said that her marks were a good start to the season.
“I was happy with the way that I threw today,” she said. “But I’m looking to continue to get better.
“This was a good day for me but the throws that really matter to me are going to be the ones that I’m going to make in May.”
Another area athlete also emerged in the shot put and discus competitions on Saturday as HVA’s Symphony Buxton was second in the shot put (34-11) and sixth in the discus (90-07).
“Throwing is fun,” Buxton said. “Basketball is my primary sport but it’s fun to come out here, throw and compete. It’s good for me because I like to compete and I love to meet new people.”
In the girls 100-meter dash, Reagan Goins of the Hawks took second with a time of 12.63 seconds. She was also a member of Hardin Valley’s 4 x 100 relay team (along with Faoro, Elaina Letellier and Lanie Griffin) that picked up a win with a time of 50.01 seconds. She was also on the Hawks 4x 200 team that took third.
Neyasha Honorable finished eighth in the 200-meter dash (26.46) and later won in the 400-meter dash (58.38).
In the girls triple jump: Hardin Valley’s Bekah Hampton was sixth (32-0.6) and Bearden’s Jenna Justus claimed eighth place (31-10-25).
The Bulldogs got a third-place finish in the pole vault from Molly Calhoun, who posted a mark of nine feet.
In the girls long jump, Bearden’s Shakara Goodloe was third (16-04.75) and Hampton came in fifth (15-06.75).
Farragut finished fifth in the girls 4x 800 and seventh in the 4x 100.
In the boys competition, Bearden junior Jacob Sobota had a huge day. He won the pole vault with a mark of 13 feet, 6 inches and had a chance to break the meet record (14-0). He was third in the long jump (21-02.50). He was also sixth in the 110-meter hurdles (16.22 seconds).
“It was a pretty good day for me but I wouldn’t say that it was my best day,” Sobota said. “I went for the meet record in the pole vault. I didn’t quite get it but I still won and I took third in the long jump.
“It was a good start to my
season.”
Bearden’s relay team of Cameron Byers, Christian Foster, Jaquez Dove and Ty Warren took third in the 4 x 200 and seventh in the 4 x 100. Byers took sixth in the 200-meter dash and placed ninth in the 100-meter dash (where he finished just outside the scoring.
He was pleased with his results Saturday.
“I feel like we did well and I feel like we have some potential,” he said. “We have a lot of work left to do and we have a lot more room to grow.”
Warren agreed.
“We are going to build from this,” he said.”
In the 110-meter hurdles, Hardin Valley’s Riley Honken
finished fifth. Bearden’s Ty Chandler was eighth and HVA’s Adan Vasquez was ninth but had a possible answer for why he couldn’t score any team points in the event for the Hawks.
“I need to get off to a faster start and I’ve been experimenting with my blocks,” he said. “I’ll do better when I get a better start out of the blocks.”
In the boys 800-meter run, Farragut’s Spencer Flint finished fifth (1:59.74) and Kenton Bachmann of HVA took seventh (2:01.91).
Louis Morris of the Admirals was fifth in the 1,600-meter run (4:27.40). The Hawks got an eighth-place finish in the
3,200-meter run from Brennan Humphreys (10:05.77).
Hardin Valley was seventh in the 4 x 400 and fifth in the 4 x 100. The Hawks also came in seventh in the 4 x 200. Farragut took sixth in the 4 x 400.
Honken was fourth in the 300-meter hurdles while Bearden’s Ty Chandler came in sixth.
Bearden’s Shawn Stacy was fourth in the high jump with a leap of 5-10.
The Hawks’ Tim Frizzell was eighth in the shot put (41-07.50). Trey Sharpe of the Admirals is hoping to reach the state meet this year. He said he was disappointed after finishing ninth in the shot put and 10th in the discus.
“I didn’t have a good day,” he said. “I just feel like I could’ve thrown better than I did today.”
