By PAUL HOOVER

Special to The News

The 2010 boys and girls track and field season opened last week with two competitions. At the first meet, Wakulla High School finished third out of 11 schools, and a few days later, took second place at a small school meet.

The first meet of the season was held at Rickards High School in Tallahassee on Tuesday, Feb. 23. Some highlights of the meet included a first place finish for the boys 4x100m relay team, which includes Lorenzo Randolph, Darrius Lewis, Demetrius Lindsey and Jamar Ellis, who finished in the very good time of 43.91 seconds.

Nickola Shingles, who just finished with basketball last week and had only gone over the full eight hurdles once in the last 10 months, shook off the cobwebs and won the 300m hurdles in an excellent time of 40.13 seconds.

Other highlights for the boys included Lorenzo Randolph (fourth in the 100m, second in the 200m), Steven Urling (fourth in the 1600m), the third place finish of the 4x800m team (Steven Urling, David Victor, Hunter Phillips and Frankie Humphries) and the second place finish of 4x400 team (Darrius Lewis, Demetrius Lindsey, Shawn Morris and Nickola Shingles).

On the girls side, the 4x800m team of Cora Atkinson, Norma Woodcock, Emily McCullers and Chelsea Thompson turned in one of the top performance of the day, placing first. Cora Atkinson also won the 3200m run. Other top performances included the 4x100m team, which finished third, and includes Alina McCullers, Norma Woodcock, Kaylyn Thigpen and Alexis Collins. 

Olivia Simpson placed second in the 800m), Alexis Collins (second, 200m), Jessica Trombini (second, 3200) and the 4x400m team of Alina McCullers, Norma Woodcock, Emily McCullers and Alexis Collins, which placed second.

On Friday, Feb. 26, the teams again traveled to Tallahassee to compete, this time at the Maclay Small School Meet.

Both the boys and girls teams performed well and finished in second place. The boys team was again paced by the 4x100m team of Lorenzo Randolph, Darrius Lewis, Demetrius Lindsey and Jamar Ellis, which placed first overall. Also turning in winning performaces for the boys were Steven Urling (1600m), Lorenzo Randolph (100m) and Nickola Shingles (300m hurdles).

Other top performances for the boys included: Demetrius Lindsey (100m, second), Jamar Ellis (100m, fourth), Darrius Lewis (200m, third), 4x400m relay (Frankie Humphries, Demetrius Lindsey, Shawn Morris and Nickola Shingles, thiid), 4x88m relay (Steven Urling, David Victor, Hunter Phillips and Frankie Humphries, second) and Caleb Vernon, who placed second in shot put, and third in discus. 

The girls were also led by their 4x100m team of Alina McCullers, Selina Williams, Kaylyn Thigpen and Alexis Collins which placed first. Cora Atkinson continued her winning ways by placing first in the high school division of the 3200m. Other notable performances included: Alexis Collins (100m, second), Cora Atkinson (1600m, third), Jessica Trombini (1600m, fourth), Emily McCullers (300m hurdles, second), 4x800m team (Cora Atkinson, Emily McCullers, Jessica Trombini and Chelsea Thompson, placed second), 4x400m team (Alina McCullers, Emily McCullers, Kaylyn Thigpen and Alexis Collins, second) and Haley Buchanan, third in the discus.

This meet was a combined high school and middle school meet and Wakulla County was well represented in the middle school division with Riversink Middle School placing third overall as team in the combined scoring and first as a middle school. Riversink had many highly placed finishers including an overall win in the 100m hurdles by Marty Wiederman. Wakulla middle school runner Kasey James won the 3200m overall and placed third in the 1600m.

"These meets were a good way to start for our kids and show that we have some talent," said Coach Paul Hoover.

"The key will be to keep the kids motivated and working hard the rest of the season. If the relay teams stay together and keep going the way they are, we could surprise some people. Individually, we are probably a little better at this time of the year than we have been for a while, but again, the real test will be for the athletes to keep improving and see where we can be at the end of the season when it really counts."

The WHS teams will compete next at the large and extremely competitive Jesse Forbes meet held at Godby High School on Saturday, March 6, with the events beginning at 11 a.m.