Smooth sailing
Vikings repeat as middle school track and field champions.
William Dandy standout Jan Taijah Ford won three events, but Lauderdale Lakes’ depth of talent was too much as they successfully defended their title during the recent Broward County middle school girls’ track and field championships at Coral Springs High School.
Ford, an eighth-grader, won the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes for the Wildcats, but the Vikings’ tracksters won six events — including all three relay races — to run away from the field with 101 points. William Dandy, buoyed by Ford’s 30 points, finished runnerup with 43 points, while Pembroke Pines Charter (38 points) took third place.
“Last year, I wasn’t as fast as I am now,” said Ford, who trimmed nearly 10 seconds off her 400-meter time from last year, when she finished second in that race. “… I am glad that I won all three [events].”
Lauderdale Lakes eighthgrader Amaya Thomas got her team off to a great start as she won the 100-meter hurdles. She also was on the winning 4-by-200- and 4-by-400-meter relay teams.
“This is a very cool experience,” said Thomas, 13 and of Coral Springs. She was competing in hurdles for the first time this season. “My brother is a well-known hurdler, and I want to be like him. … I have been training really hard for (the county meet), and my coaches said I could win with the times I had been running in practice. It is very cool that our team won the county title.”
North Lauderdale’s Dominique Spann successfully defended her championship in the 1,600-meter run as she won by nearly 30 seconds over runner-up Halie Murphy of Westglades.
Spann, 12, a seventh-grader at Lauderdale Lakes, transferred from Pompano Beach Middle School, where she won the title last year.
“I knew that the girl from Westglades was going to be coming for me,” said Spann, whose mother Dawn coaches track at Boyd Anderson High School. “I had more competition this year, so I didn’t think I would win this year.”
Vikings coach Horace Ruddock was thrilled that his squad was able to repeat.
“This is great; it’s awesome,” Ruddock said. “Our championship was the result of contributions from everyone. It came from the distance (runners) to the field participants to the sprinters.”
The Vikings’ point total was bolstered by the solid performances of the Spann sisters — Dominique and Daishon.
Daishon finished runner-up in the high jump and the 400-meter dash competitions and was seventh in the 200-meter dash. Dominique took sixth place in the discus.
“That came as a blessing,” said Ruddock, whose 4-by-200 relay team set a new school record at 1:47.12. “The main thing is that all of the girls fit around them. They are team leaders, and everybody just rallied around them.”
Another Lauderdale Lakes trackster, Allison Lewis, won the high jump and came in second in the long jump. She was also a member of the winning 4-by-100 team.
Pembroke Pines Charter School sixth-grader Christal Facey, who was seeded second entering the 800-meter run, broke away from the pack on the final lap to win with a personal-best time of 2:26.32. She edged topseeded Cheyanne Morris of Nova.
“It is really cool to win,” said Facey, 11 and of Pembroke Pines. “With 100 meters to go, I saw that (Morris) was gaining some ground, so I started kicking harder and she didn’t come up again. I felt really good when I crossed the finish line because I didn’t think I would win and I won. I ran my hardest and didn’t give up.”
Other winners included Ramblewood’s Raiana Grant (long jump), Lyons Creek’s Charlotte Hood (discus) and William Dandy’s Raven White (shot put).