Charleston – Friday night fans at the state track meet on Laidley Field saw the conclusion of the Class AAA championship and the opening round of events in Class A.
Morgantown brought home the girls championship with relative ease, beating second place Jefferson by 22 points.
Hurricane was one point better than Parkersburg for third, while Huntington edged Preston County for fifth.
Woodrow Wilson was the top local team with an eighth place finish.
Bella Staples, Mya Wooton and Somalia Nelson all earned all-state honors for the Flying Eagles, while Wooton and Nelson joined Kyndall Ince and Salia Harris to take second place in the hotly contested 4×200 relay.
Staples earned her honor by taking third place in the shot put one Thursday evening. Staples had a throw of 34-01.5, just one-foot short of state champion Makayla Moore from Huntington.
Nelson’s first medal and all-state honor of the state tournament came in the high jump where she finished fourth Thursday night.
Thursday night was also good for Wooton who took third in the 400-meter dash to become an all-stater.
The 4×200 relay was a nail-biter Friday. Jefferson won the event by three seconds, but second through fourth place were separated by just a half second.
Staples, Nelson, Wooton, Ince and Harris are all underclassman.
On the boys side, University edged Jefferson 93-88 for the team championship. Huntington was two points better than Musselman for third place, while Buckhannon-Upshur finished fifth and Morgantown was sixth.
Zach Patton from Greenbrier East won all-state honors Thursday night with a fourth place finish in the long jump.
Jefferson set a new state record time in the 4×200 relay with a time of 1:27.80. The old record time was 1:27.88, set in 1987 by Woodrow Wilson.
***
Five local players secured all-state honors in Friday’s opening round of Class A events.
Richwood senior Josh Landreth repeated as an all-stater when he took second place in the discus throw.
Landreth finished third in the same event last year and bested that throw by seven feet. Unfortunately for Landreth, he was just over a foot short of state champion Rowan Gerlach from Wahama.
Trey Stanley from Richwood duplicated his fifth place finish from last year in the 3200 meter run, while Caleb Williams made it an all-state tri-fecta for the Lumberjacks with a fourth place finish in the 400 meter dash.
A James Monroe two-some also walked away with all-state honors Friday.
Lilly Jackson from James Monroe finished fourth in the girls high jump, while fellow Maverick Haiden Huffman took second place in the boys long jump.
Ritchie County senior Gus Morrison set a new state record in the boys long jump with a leap of 22-06.5. The old record was held by Zain Creamer from South Harrison set in 2012.
Richwood sits in fourth place in Class A after day one which concludes Saturday.
