By Michael “Moe” Murphy
Special to LoudounPrepSports.com
Harrisonburg (June 2, 2008) – With everything set for another down-to-the-wire finish, the Brentsville District Tigers seemingly turned the tables on the Park View Patriots girl’s track and field team Saturday, downing the Patriots 45-42 to capture the VHSL AA State Track & Field Championship. A week earlier the Patriots defeated the Tigers by two points to capture the Region II title.
And while the Tigers bounced away with the team trophy, Park View may actually add another state title trophy to its school’s trophy case as meet official spent Monday reviewing a possible scoring error that might actually leave the two schools tied.
Park View AD Joe Breinig Jr. said a final decision by the VHSL should come by Tuesday morning.
The meet marked the end of the high school careers of several talented and college-bound student athletes. The two most talked about being Park View’s Natalie Baird and Dominion’s Jennifer Weatherly.
Baird destroyed the field in the girl’s discus with throw of 161-7 inches for her fourth consecutive discus championship. The throw on Friday is a Virginia High School League state record for the longest throw in a sanctioned and non-sanctioned meet by a girl. Sanctioned meets are meets such as large invitationals, Regionals etc. Non-sanctioned meets consist of regular meets such as a dual meet. In comparison, Warren County’s Reuben Shanks won the boys AA state discus medal with a throw of nearly ten feet less at 152 feet.
“Going into my last discus throw I was thinking I need to go all out on this throw,” Baird said. “I need to speed up my sequence, it’s either going to be terrible or else pretty good.”
The later was true as it was not just pretty good, but the farthest that a girl had ever thrown the discus in a Virginia high school meet. Baird backed the performance up with a toss of 43-9 in the shot put for her third consecutive shot put crown and the seventh individual championship of her storied career. Baird will compete next year for William & Mary.
The only other Dulles District athlete to win an individual title was senior Jennifer Weatherly of Dominion. Weather won the 200 meters, edging out Sherelle White of York High School by nine one-hundredths of a second with a time of 26.0.
Weatherly was in one of the most exciting events Saturday, the girls 400 meters where the UVa-bound Weatherly chased down Michelle Speede of Grafton, but was unable to catch her, finishing just over one-tenth of a second behind the aptly named Speede.
“I have run against her [Speede] before and she is a real good runner,” Weatherly said. “She got a real good jump and got the early lead; I was able to catch up but just didn’t have enough time.”
Weatherly also finished fifth in the girls 100 meters. The sprinters were hampered with strong head winds, as many preliminary times were faster than the finals.
The Heritage Pride 4×400 meter relay team of Hannah McLaughlin, Devon Andersen-Farmer, Emma McLaughlin and Kenice Brown defended the Pride’s state title in the event with a time of 3:59.72. They were the only girls team to break the four minute mark, less than one second over the meet record despite the windy conditions. Even more impressive is that Angie Cerimele, who normally runs the 4×400, was unable to race Saturday.
Second place in the 4×400 went to the Potomac Falls quartet of Abimbola Akinduro, Ariana Jones, Tanika Branom and Christina Lee with a school record time of 4:00.94, almost eight seconds faster than their seed time.
Other Dulles District athletes with strong performances included on the boy’s side
Shehzaib Usman of Park View captured a second place in the boy’s discus with a throw of 151-6 just six inches short of Reuben Shanks winning throw of 152. Potomac Falls’ Tyler Wilson placed seventh with a toss of 140-10.
John Lewis of Loudoun County finished fifth in the boys 110 meter hurdles with a time of 15.61, and was fourth in the 100 meters with a time of 11.48.
Sam Saidi of Broad Run was sixth in the triple jump with a jump of 43-10, sixth in the high jump with a jump of 6-4. The winning height was 6-8 and 6-6 captured second. Several jumpers finished tied at 6-4, but the number of misses is used for a tie breaker. Didier Saidi also jumped 6-4 for the Spartans and was awarded seventh.
Broad Run’s George Black placed sixth in the shot put with a throw of 49-2.
The Potomac Falls boys 4×800 relay team finished fourth at a school record 8:06. Loudoun County’s 4x 100 relay team finished seventh at 43.96.
Will Ford of Potomac Falls finished sixth in the boys 400 meters with a time of 50.87. Teammate Ryan Hagen finished fourth for the Panthers in the 800 meter run with a time of 1.57.2.
Other Dulles District athletes with strong performances included on the girl’s side;\
Lauren Tomlinson of Park View finished third in the girls shot with a throw of 40-0 and fourth in the discus with a personal best throw of 125-11. Julia Anyaugo finished second in the discus with a throw of 129-11 to give the Patriots 1-2-4 in the discus.
Laura Heitz of Broad Run finished in a tie for sixth place in the girls high jump with a jump of 5-0. Charlene Fowler of Park View was sixth in the girl’s long jump with a leap of 17-10.
Brooke Thompson of Broad Run finished in fourth place in the 100 meter hurdles with a time of 16.08.
Christina Lee of Potomac Falls finished fifth in the girls 1600 meter run with a time of 5:13.24 and teammate Ariana Jones finished eighth in the 800 meter run at 2:22.8
Heritage’s dynamic sister duo of Hannah McLaughlin and Emma McLaughlin placed 7th and 8th in the 400 meters with times of 59. 69 and 1.00.20.
The Potomac Falls 4×800 relay team was second with a school record 9:39.17, Loudoun County finished eighth at 10:02. The Heritage 4×100 relay team finished fourth with a time of 50:14. The Loudoun County Raider 4×400 relay team finished seventh at 4:07.14.
The Potomac Falls boys team was the highest finishing Loudoun team in the meet with a tie for 13th.
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