Calhoun boys win second track meet of year
The Calhoun high school boys trackand-field team won their second meet of the young season recently, when the Yellow Jackets were the Southeast Invitational champions at Southeast Whitfield County High School.
With six first places, including five individual golds and one in the relays, head coach Brant Murry’s team scored 127 points to secure the team title over 10 other schools.
Cass was second in the team listings with 100 points, just edging out Dalton, which came in third with 96. Besides a tough battle for second place, there was also a serious fight for fourth place with Catoosa Heritage just nipping out the hosts to round out the top five.
Heritage ended the meet with 84 points for fourth place and Southeast Whitfield County closed with 83.
Calhoun junior hurdler Jadon Thomason continued his impressive earlyseason work, winning both hurdles races for the second straight meet, and the Jackets’ other three individual first places came in the field events.
Besides Thomason winning both hurdles races, the Yellow Jackets actually claimed two of the top three spots in both the 110-meter and 300-meters.
Thomason won the 110s with a 14.79 time, just a couple steps ahead of a Dalton racer’s second place showing of 14.90.
Calhoun senior Dustin Kerns was third for the bronze with a 15.11.
In the 300, Thomason won by over a full second, running a 40.16 with a 41.55 the second place time.
Calhoun junior Stover Morgan brought home the bronze in a close race for third, finishing with a 43.22 with a 43.25 fourth.
Senior Braxton Medders in the triple jump, sophomore Kamryn Penny in the long jump, and sophomore Max Richardson in the wheelchair shot put were the other gold medal winners.
And Medders had a good day in the field events overall, because besides his triumph in the triple jump with a 41-02, he was second in the high jump at 6-feet even.
TRACK,
He won the triple jump by over two feet with the second-place distance a 39-11 and just missed out on two gold medals because the winning height in the high jump was six feet and a quarter inch.
Penny won the long jump with a 21-feet, six inch flight and he led a solid Calhoun showing in a crowded field of nearly 25 competitors with two of the top five performers. Senior Cam Curtis went 19 feet, 5.5 inches on his
best jump for fifth place.
Richardson was the shot put champ in the wheelchair division with a throw of 4-05.75.
In the relays, Calhoun was the 4-x-400 winner with a 3:42.56, just a second ahead of Northwest Whitfield County’s runner-up 3:43.59. And it was a close race period, with the top seven teams all running times under 3:50.
The Jackets were just a step away from winning two relays overall, as they were second in the 4-x-100, falling to Dalton by four one-hundredths of a second.
The Catamounts had a 43.45 and Calhoun ran a 43.49.
The Jackets were fourth in the other two relays with the Dalton A team winning them both.
They put together a 1:36.74 in the 4-x-200 and were just behind the third-place Northwest Whitfield County A team, which had a 1:36.13 for the bronze.
Dalton A won the race with a 1:32.20 and the top seven teams all ran times under 1:39.
The Calhoun 4-x-800 relay team was fourth with a 9:49.69.
Penny was actually a double medalist for Calhoun with a third place 11.07 in the 100-meter dash. In that event, the the Yellow Jackets secured two of the top seven
spots in a crowded field with junior Caden Williams running an 11.38 for seventh.
Williams was a medalist himself in the 200-meter run, coming in third with a 23.07 and he was a foot’s length from the silver as the second place time was a 23.03.
Dalton runner Luke Blanchard was both of those sprints, running a 10.95 in the 100-meter and a 22.65 in the 200-m.
Only eight runners in the large 200 field posted times under 23 seconds and the final one was Calhoun freshman Justin Beasley’s 23.72.
The Jackets’ other best efforts
came with top five showings in the shot put and discus.
Junior Kristyane Gregory was fourth and classmate Christian Bell was fifth in the shot. Gregory had a 41-05.75 throw for fourth and Bell had a 39-09 best as only six of the nearly 25 shot putters went beyond 39 feet.
Bell was also fifth in the discus with a 114-01 and he was the last man in the ring to go past 110 feet.
Kerns was sixth in the pole vault at nine feet even. The winning height was 13 feet, but the second through fifth places were all between 9-06 and 9-06.50, so Kerns was in the mix.