Decatur girls capture 1A state title

CONWAY — Desi Meek won three events Tuesday and helped Decatur’s girls win the Class 1A state track and field championship Tuesday at Hendrix College.

The Lady Bulldogs finished the meet with 91 points, while second-place Mineral Springs had 64.5 to Acorn’s 59. Haas Hall Bentonville, thanks to Jamison Maass’ dominance in the distance events, finished ninth with 30 points.

Meek acounted for 52 of Decatur’s points with her performances as she won the 200 meters in 27.43 seconds and dominated the hurdles, taking the 100s in 17.30 seconds and the 300s in 47.84 seconds. Meek missed a fourth victory in the triple jump when her leap of 31 feet, 6 inches fell an inch short of first place, and she also finished second in the 100 (13.43) and third in the pole vault (8-0).

Decatur also picked up wins from Cameron Shaffer in the shot put (34-5.25) and the discus (102-3.5), the Lady Bulldogs also picked up a first-place finish from Destiny Meija in the high jump (4-11).

Maass captured all three distance events, with winning times of 2 minutes, 32.79 seconds in the 800, 5:40.89 in the 1,600 and 12:38.05 in the 3,200 — a race where she beat her closest competitor by more than a minute.

On the boys side, Decatur came away with second place in the team standings with 76 points. Trinity Christian won the meet with 92 points, while Mineral Springs edged Mount Ida for third place by a 64.5-61 margin.

Taylor Haisman gave the Bulldogs a first-place finish in the 800 with his time of 2:04.25, while teammate Ryan Shaffer captured the 300 hurdles in 41.96 seconds. Decatur also won two of three relays, finishing the 4x400 in 3:40.16 and the 4x800 in 9:09.88.