Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Athletes blow through meet records despite heavy winds
BENTONVILLE — Sloan Jones felt the strong wind blowing in his face as he began to run the 110-meter hurdles and didn’t think his time would be that great.
It was good enough to put etch his name into the Tiger Relays record books.
The Fayetteville senior turned in a time of 14.96 seconds to set the meet record Wednesday at the Tiger Athletic Complex. Jones broke the previous record of 15.22 seconds set by Tony Roller of Rogers in 2016 and tied by Bruce Payerli of Rogers Heritage last year.
“I was just planning to get out of the blocks strong and stay strong throughout the whole race,” said Jones, who barely missed a second record with his personal-best time of 39.02 seconds in the 300 hurdles. “I knew I wasn’t going to run the best time. The wind was really pushing, for sure, but I knew I could still get the win. That’s what I aimed for and got it, so I’m happy with that.
“Hey, more records to my name. That’s always a good day and always a good thing to hear.”
Jones was one of three athletes who broke meet records despite the strong breeze blowing out of the south throughout the meet, and three girls records were surpassed by the top two finishers in each event. Ava Goetz of Fayetteville cleared 5 feet, 9 inches to win the high jump and broke the previous mark of 5-5 set by Rachel Wilson of Bentonville West in 2022, while Bentonville’s Paisley High took second at 5-8.
Meanwhile, Bentonville junior Jane Musengwa shattered the previous meet record in the discus with three of her four attempts. Musengwa wound up with a throw of 131-8 to easily surpass the previous mark of 121-1 set by Ryann Goodsell of Springdale in 2015. Musengwa’s first attempt went 123-1 while the wind blew from her right to left, then her next throw went 126-2 before her big throw on the final try. Ashley Rangel of Bentonville West finished second with her throw of 121-9.
“You know, it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be, but it was fun,” Musengwa said. “I could have done better, but I’m glad I got what I got. I did have to change a little bit. I usually have to change when I let go of the discus so I can get it where I wanted it to go.
“It felt good. It was windy, and that definitely contributed to it.”
The same thing happened in the shot put, where Musengwa won the event with a throw of 40-10 1/2 and broke the meet mark of 36-3 3/4 set by Fayetteville’s Jasmin Franklin in 2016, while Rangel was next at 38-6 and a third athlete — Bentonville’s Nadia Clark — surpassed the previous mark with her throw of 37-11.5.
Musengwa’s performances highlighted a strong outing by the Lady Tigers, who won 10 of the 18 events and cruised to the team title. Bentonville compiled 273.5 points, while Fayetteville was a distant second at 102, followed by Bentonville West with 97 points.
“It’s a home meet, so once again it’s nice to win your home meet,” Bentonville Coach Randy Ramaker said. “There were some teams that didn’t roll all their stuff out there because they had other things going. We have 13 seniors, and it has to be special for them. Everybody went out and performed pretty well.
“Jane had those meet records, and Paisley had a PR in the high jump. Our 4x100 relay running 48 in this wind is pretty good, so that was great to see. The distance runners ran well, even thought it’s hard to win in this wind. There wasn’t a lot of weaknesses where we scored points here but didn’t score them there.”
Bentonville also captured the boys title, but by a closer margin as it had 192.5 points to 147 for second-place Fayetteville. Rogers finished a distant third with 90, followed by Bentonville West at 68.