Junior Lady Blackhawk track team takes on bigs
The Blackhawk junior girls entered the War Eagle Track Invitational last week, the only team entered not from a 7A classification school. The size discrepancy didn’t matter though as Pea Ridge took home the championship trophy after a stirring finish in the 4x400 relay won the day.
The ’Hawks held a razor thin 1.75 point lead over Fayetteville headed into the last event of the day. Had the Bulldogs won the relay, Fayetteville would have beaten the ’Hawks by 0.25 points. However, the quartet of Olivia McCracken, Maddison Robinson, Madison Smith and Adelina Means captured gold in the meet ending 4x400 relay, six seconds ahead of runner-up Fayetteville to take the overall championship.
Pea Ridge wound up with 140 points with Fayetteville settling for second with 136.25. Rogers was third with 111.50 with Rogers Heritage scoring 84.75, Bentonville 60, Springdale Southwest 27, Springdale Lakeside 21.5 and Bentonville West with 19.
The boys track team took seventh with 24 points with Bentonville dominating the boys division by scoring 177, far ahead of Rogers’ second place total of 141.
McCracken led the girls scoring with 30.5 points with Means scoring 25. Claire Hale was third in scoring for the ’Hawks with 16 markers.
Patrick Elliott scored 10 lead the boys’ scoring.
Means won four gold medals with victories in the 400 (1:09.2) and 800 (2:43.0) along with legs on the ’Hawks’ winning 4x400 (4:43.0) and 4x800 relays (11:14.9). The other members of the champion 4x800 were Harmony Reynolds, Robinson, Smith and Lauren Wright.
Three other Lady ’Hawks won individual championships in addition to Means’ double. Hale took top honors in the 100 hurdles (18.16), McCracker lept to a 14’5” victory in the long jump with Wright soared 9’0” to win the pole vault.
Other individual scoring for the girls was: Bayleigh Cloud, fourth in the 200 (31.71); McCracken third in the 400 (1:09.7)and fifth in the 100 hurdles (19.1); Harmony Reynolds, third in the 800 (2:45.5); Hale seventh in the 100 (14.4); Olivia Scates, fifth in the 1,600 (6:41.9). and Mikayla Humphrey, eighth in the 100 hurdles (20.76).
Individual boys scoring besides Elliott include Tate Christenson with 6 and Duncan Artt with 2.
The Lady ’Hawks’ 4x100 sprint relay came in fourth to round out the scoring. Robinson, Hale, Wright and Cloud teamed up to run the race in 58.3.
Elliott led the boys with a third place in the 100 (11.55), sixth in the long jump (17’4”), and was a part of the fifth place 4x100 relay (48.35) along with Cole Brown, Zak Withrow and Travis Cole. Christenson was third in the discus with a 108’8” throw with Artt eighth in the 400 (1:11.5).
The ’Hawks’ 4x400 relay of Josiah Small, Joe Adams, Withrow and Artt took sixth in 4:09.1 with the 4x800 team coming in eighth in 10:09.1. Team members were Jorge Vasquez, Marcus Nobles, Small and Gavin Stanley.