Running with Wolves
The Rome boys and girls sweep the Floyd County Invitational.
All season long, Rome track coach Nick Bridges talked how his athletes had the potential to take over a meet. He was proven right on Wednesday night, and he had the rest of the county watch his team run towards a championship.
The Wolves and Lady Wolves dominated almost every sprint and relay, as both teams easily won the Floyd County Invitational at Pepperell. The boys were able to finish with a team score of 198 while the girls finished with 215 points.
Both scores were remarkable considering the highest a team could score is 288. Bridges saw it as a result of the sheer size of Rome’s team and the many athletes with specific skills.
“The key to our whole program is our numbers,” Bridges said. “We started this year we had 112 kids and we still have 96 that come to practice every day. You aren’t asking one person to go through five or six events, you have several folks who can each be an expert in their field.”
Each Rome team had plenty of star power, but teams like Darlington and Pepperell were still in contention for the team title after the field events. The Tigers were actually leading the Rome boys by one point as the running events began to start.
But the Wolves jumped back ahead in the sprints, starting with first place finishes in the both girls’ and boys’ 400 meter relay. That was followed up with Shidell Millsap and Zaysha Brown each winning the 100 meters.
“Darlington is always a strong team, so it felt great to just pull away,” Bridges said. “We know what the strength of our team is, and we knew we would do well in middle distance in sprints. Once we got to that area we felt somewhat confident.”
from B1 Photos by Tommy Romanach, Rome News-Tribune
But the most rewarding moment for Rome came in the final two events, the girls and boys 1600 meter relays.
On both sides, the Rome ‘A’ and ‘B’ teams went first and second in the race.
It was a credit not only to Rome’s strength in numbers, but also the
training every sprinter on the team goes through.
“We have great 100 meter runners and we have great 200 meter runners,” Bridges said. “But we train those sprinters that they’re 400 meter runners, every one of them. There is not a doubt in what we do, and that was evident today.”
Other teams competing in the invitational included Pepperell, Darlington, Model, Armuchee, Coosa, Rockmart, Chattooga and Cedartown.