By Staff
TRACK TEAMS COMPETE AT JESSEE FORBES MEET
The Wakulla High School track teams competed on Saturday, March 6, at the Jesse Forbes Meet held at Godby High School. Both the boys and girls teams placed seventh at this very competitive meet.
The highlight of the day for WHS was the performance of Nickola Shingles in winning the 300 meter hurdles in a season best time of 39.48 seconds. This performance kept his winning streak for this year intact. Other members of the boys team who scored points for the team included: Caleb Vernon (8th, discus), 4x800 meter team (5th, Steven Urling, David Victor, Hunter Phillips, Shawn Morris), Lorenzo Randolph (4th, 100 meters), Demetrius Lindsey (6th, 100 meters), Jamar Ellis (7th, 100 meters), Steven Urling (7th, 1600 meters) and the 4x400 meter team (5th, Darrius Lewis, Shawn Morris, Demetrius Lindsey and Nickola Shingles).
On the girls side, solid performances were turned in by a number of athletes, with Alexis Collins and Cora Atkinson leading the way with second place finishes in the 100 meter dash and 3200 meters respectfully, Chelsea Thompson with a third in the 1600 meters and the 4x100 meter team of Alina McCullers, Nyesha Calloway, Selina Williams and Alexis Collins which also placed third. Others scoring points for the team included: the 4x800 meter team (4th, Cora Atkinson, Chelsea Thompson, Norma Woodcock, Emily McCullers), Raychel Gray (5th, 1600 meters), Alina McCullers (5th, 300 meter hurdles), and Jessica Trombini (4th, 3200 meters).
"Overall, we were pleased with the efforts of the athletes," said Coach Paul Hoover. "The teams were more competitive than we have been for the last couple of years. There were a lot of positives from this meet and a lot of things to build on."
One of the biggest disappointments of the day came in the boys 4x100 relay in which the WHS team was in an almost dead heat with Godby and Fredrick Douglass High School from Atlanta. Coming into the final leg, a bad exchange ended the race for WHS.
"That was disappointing for our guys, " said Coach Hoover. "Our strongest runner was coming up and it looked really good for us until we missed the handoff, but that's just the nature of relay events. Those guys work hard and there seems to be a special chemistry on that team,. They will be back!"
Because of FCAT testing, the teams will not compete this week, but will return to action on March 16, back at Godby High School.
For the first time this year, the Jesse Forbes Invitational also included a separate meet on Friday, March 5, for middle school teams. This endeavor was a great success with 16 middle school teams in attendance. Wakulla County was well represented with the Riversprings Middle School girls placing third overall and the Wakulla Middle School girls placing 11th. Top performances from these schools included Kasey James' second place finish in the 1600 meter run (WMS), Lydia Wiedman's third place in the 800 meter run (RMS), Leah Kennedy's thrid place in the shot put and the Riversprings 4x400 meter relay team that placed third.
