Kayla Caudill paces Lady Warriors’ win
The Gordon Central High School girls track and field team is nearing the end of the 2022 campaign.
And apparently picking up a lot of steam with the Region 7-2A meet right around the corner.
Junior Kayla Caudill won three events herself and the rest of the team dominated as well last week as the Lady Warriors won their last quadrangular meet of the season at Ratner Stadium.
Gordon Central scored 107 points to finish well in front of Region mate Model, which was second with 40 points. Coosa, another team the girls will meet in the upcoming Region event, along with Region 6-3A resident LakeviewFort Oglethorpe were the other schools that attended.
Caudill showed off her athleticism by winning the high jump, long jump and the 100-yard dash to highlight a day that saw the Lady Warriors finish first in nine events and all four relays.
Caudill won the high jump (4-08) by six inches over a Model student-athlete and won the long jump (14-06.75) by over two feet in an event the Warriors had three of the top four finishes.
The second-place distance was 12-11 and then GC had the next two places in the final long jump results and they were just a quarter-inch apart with Arwen Boyle third at 12-06.25 and Faith French fourth at 12-06 even.
Caudill led a 1-3 Gordon Central finish in the 100-yard sprint as the top three runners were less than three-tenths of a second apart.
She won the meet’s shortest race with a 13.40, finishing just ahead of a Coosa runner who had a 13.45. Warrior freshman Raniyah Ellis was just a couple of steps behind both for the bronze medal with a 13.67 time.
And Ellis had to hold off a couple of hot pursuers as well because in all, five girls would run a time of under 13.80 in the competition.
Boyle herself collected gold in the pole vault, winning it with a height of 6-foot6. Only one other girl got to the six feet with a vault.
The Lady Warriors also went 1-2 in three different events, giving them 10 more team points in each, which heavily contributed to the win.
They were first and second in the shot put, the 200-meter run, and the 1,600-meter run.
Jessica Ullman won the shot put at 32 feet, one inch and junior Meredith Campuzano was second for the Warriors at 29 feet, 10 inches.
Junior Cassie Chastain won the 200-meter (28.33) and was just in front of Ellis, who took the silver medal (28.87) in a race in which they were the only girls to reach the finish line in under 29 seconds.
Jessica Gutierrez won the mile (7:06.37) and teammate Alicia Dela Cruz came in second. Nathalia Toledo and Ana Organista were other milers who ran for the Warriors.
Campuzano also had a gold medal herself, winning the discus throw rather easily with a distance of 94 feet, 11 inches. She was exactly 14 feet ahead of the second-best throw of 80 feet, 11 inches.
And Dela Cruz sparked a 1-4 finish in the 400-meter run for the Lady Warriors
by winning it (1:19.81) by nearly five seconds over the second place girl from Coosa (1:24.06). Judi Ramirez was fourth in the race for the Lady Warriors (1:25.33) but less than a second from the third place 1:24.74.
Katy Hames was second in the 800-meter run in another event where the Warriors had two of the top four finishers.
Hames pushed Model runner Natalie Long to the finish line before coming in second (2:47.80) with Long being first (2:46.80) as the race was really only between those two. Gutierrez came in fourth and led a parade of GC girls with Toledo, Ramirez, Kaydence Garland, and Dela Cruz all
finishing one after the other.
In the relays, Gordon Central won them all to collect 24 points and contribute to its success.
In the 4-x-800 and the 4-x-200, the Lady Warriors really had no competition, winning the longest race of the day with a 13:33.50 and taking the 800 with an excellent time below two minutes at 1:59.05.
And they came in ahead of Model in both the 4-x100 and the 4-x-400. The Warriors won the 400 with a 54.61 while Model ran a 57.36 to finish ahead of LFO’s A team, which ran a 57.50.
In the mile relay, Gordon Central ran a 5:19.36 for first while the Model A team ran a 5:36.69 for second.