Mtn. Pointe ends Chandler’s title run at 9
Chandler girls won the final race, the 1,600-meter relay on Saturday night, but it wasn’t enough to keep the streak alive.
Phoenix Mountain Pointe, with tremendous effort from its sprinters and hurdlers, led by Autumn Smith, broke Chandler’s string of Division I track and field championships at nine.
Mountain Pointe captured the title with108 points. Chandler was second at 101 points.
Chandler lost a chance at 10 points after being disqualified in the 400 relay on Wednesday.
Chandler senior Nastasia Peevy bounced back from dropping the baton Wednesday on the last leg of the sprint relay by winning the 100 final Saturday in 11.75 seconds.
Peevy finished third in the race at the Division II level last year when she was at Tempe Marcos de Niza.
“I felt like it was my fault because it was in my hands and it slipped out,” Peevy said. “I just put my head down and ran through to the wire.”
Peevy came back later to win the 200 in 24.79.
“It’s good, but I didn’t reach my goal and that was to beat my PR (24.63),” she said.
Chandler picked up big points in the discus and long jump.
Senior Corneisha Mitchell won the discus with a toss of 135 feet, 4 inches. Freshman Jai Gruenwald won the long jump at 18-11.
Phoenix North Canyon senior Jasmine Stauffacher-Gray was trying to duplicate last year’s diffficult feat of winning the 400 and 300 hurdles in back-toback finals.
After the UCLA-bound runner won the 400 in 54.36 seconds, Stauffacher-Gray was second in the 300 hurdles to Mountain Pointe’s Autumn Smith. Smith won in 42.94. Stauffacher-Gray ran 43.40.
Smith also won the 100 hurdles in 14.23.
Stauffacher-Gray won the state title in the 400 all four years.
Smith was also part of Mountain Pointe’s winning sprint relay.
Desert Vista senior Dani Jones finished her final state championships track meet in style, anchoring the winning 3,200-meter relay with an incredible kick and also running the third-fastest 3,200 in girls state history.
She won her fourth gold medal of the week, winning the Division I title in the 3,200 in 10 minutes, 19.62 seconds.
Earlier in the day, her 800 split in the distance relay was 2:08.23.
On Wednesday, Jones won the 1,600 and the 800 titles.
She didn’t break a state record in the process but she will have three national meets in June to try to break her own 1,600 state record that she has broken twice since taking down Sara Gorton’s record last year at state.
Phoenix Alhambra senior Zarriea Willis won the high jump at 5-8.