Lady Phoenix second at Region event
The Sonoraville High School girls track and field team was second last week in the Region 6-3A meet at Rockmart High.
The high finish by the Lady Phoenix means the team will have a large number of girls participating in the 3A Sectional this Saturday in Atlanta.
(The top four finishers in each event automatically qualify for the Sectional with the top two their qualifying for the 3A state meet one week later).
The Lady Phoenix would finish the read to meet with five individual first places and senior Taylor Steele claim two of those by winning the discus and the shot put competitions.
In addition, sophomore Brynley Walraven had an excellent meet with one first place and a pair of seconds while freshman Mattie Hibberts was the Region champ in the 300-meter hurdles and senior teammates Kendal Whitehead and Chloe Parker were first and second, respectively, in the pole vault.
For Steele, both of her 6-3A championships came against the largest number of competitors in any event with 22 girls in the discus and 22 more throwing the shot put.
Steele won the discus by more than eight feet, with a 96-04 her best throw while the second-place distance was 88 feet exactly by a Ringgold sophomore.
She was also a sharp winner in the shot, hurling it 35 feet, 3.5 inches, which was four inches farther than the second-place distance of 31
feet, 3.5 inch by a Lafayette sophomore.
Senior Olyvia Hopper, Junior Kacey Bradley, and freshman Ashley Fountain also competed in the shot put and discus for Sonoraville.
Whitehead and Parker ruled pole vault competition with Whitehead clearing the bar 8 feet for the gold medal and Parker coming in second at 7 ft, 6 inches as they were the only two girls to reach that height. The third place effort was 7 feet even.
Walraven will compete in three individual events at sectional after she was the region champ in the 400 meter dash and the region runner-up in the 100 and the 200.
And Sonoraville did very well in all three of those events, qualifying two girls for sectionals in rwo of them by placing a pair in the top four final listings.
She won the 400-meter with a 1:01.28 and just eclipsed a North Murray runner, who had a 1:01.43, for second
with no one else in the race running a time under 1:05.
Freshman Taylor Harris qualified for the Sectional for the first time by coming in fourth with a 1:06.24. Both girls ran a time two seconds faster than they recorded the day before in the preliminary.
Walraven also pushed the winners in both the 100 and 200 races before settling for the silver medal in two really by-a-nose finishes.
The Phoenix were 2-3 in the 200-m with Walraven running a 27.43 to come in before senior teammate Emily McBurnett, who was third at 27.87. A Rockmart freshman had the only time
below 27 seconds at 26.93 to win it.
The 100-meter run was even closer with the top five girls all separated by eighttenths of a second.
Walraven ran a stellar 13.52 for second behind the winning 13.13 buy a junior from North Murray High School.
The three girls behind Walraven were seriously bunched up with the fifth-place time in a still-fast 13.90.
Hibberts had Sonoraville’s other individual gold, winning the longer of the two hurdles races with a 50.01. The freshman had to be the favorite going into that 300-m finals race after she also won the preliminary
with a solid time of 50.22.
All four of the Phoenix’s relay teams also advanced with the winning one, coming in third and two more and placing fourth in another.
They mined the gold medal in the 4-x-400 meters, running a 4:33.54 to finish more than 11 seconds ahead of second-place Rockmart.
The Firebirds were third in the 400-m and 800-m races, closing with a 53.82 in the 400 and a 1:59.49 in the 800.
Rockmart won the quartermile relay, running a 50.83 and the Coahulla Creek girls were the 800 champs, closing at 1:57.64.
Sonoraville was fourth
in the two-mile relay, recording a 13:14.01. Rockmart came in first to win its second relay race.
The Phoenix will also have a pair of runners at sectionals in the 800m event after sophomore Liz Bautista was second in the event and classmate Janelle Lopez was fourth.
Bautista ended the race with a 2:44.55 and the winning time was by a junior from Lafayette, who had a 2:42.57.
Lopez had a real shot at placing third at the end of the race, but came in fourth with a 2:46.75 while the third-place time was a 2:46.29.