Led by sprinters, Jefferson girls are state champions
SHEPHERDSTOWN — With three of the top four finishes in the 200 meter sprint, Jefferson literally hurried off with the girls Class AAA track and field state championship laurels.
Lorelei Bangit (who had earlier won the 400 sprint), Trinity Blue and Hailey Dillow placed second, third and fourth in the 200 to highlight Jefferson’s team success at the event held at Laidley Field in Charleston. That threesome’s one-race total of 18 points was one of the critical instances for the Cougars, who registered 87 points in shoving past Morgantown (77), Wheeling Park (74), Hurricane (45) and University (40) for the big-school state championship. Jefferson had an earlier state title in 2009.
Two other mother lodes of points came from the first-place garnered by the 4×100 relay unit composed of Jordan Carr, Blue, Bangit and Dillow and the meet-winning 4×200 relay team that had Arayia Maiben, Blue, Carr and Dillow. Both those relay wins were worth 10 points each for the team total.
The second-place finish in the 4×400 relay came with eight additional points and was achieved by Bangit, Blue, Jade Matthews and Jayla Kidrick.
Further fleshing out Jefferson’s point total were the third-place showings of Briauna Goins (100 hurdles), the point-scoring foursome of T’Asya Jay, Kaitlyn Cullen, Hope Gestl and Goins in the shuttle hurdle relay, Hannah Shanley (discus) and Dillow (100 dash). Third place finishes were worth six team points.
The rest of Jefferson’s points came on Shanley’s fifth place in the shot put, Goins’ fifth place in the high jump, Carr’s fifth place in the long jump and Helena Radford’s sixth place in the discus.
In all, Jefferson had 14 athletes contribute points.
In the boys division of the Class AAA state meet, Jefferson finished fourth, scoring 53 points, while Parkersburg (110 points) left no doubt as to its superiority in winning. Wheeling Park was second with 81 points to exceed University’s 59 points, Jefferson’s 53 and Morgantown’s 36 points.
The Cougars did have team wins in both the 4×200 relay and the 4×400 relay. Sprinting on the 4×200 relay team were Caleb Shelton, Justin deMoulin, Keyshawn Robinson and Isaiah Fritts. The four runners comprising the 4×400 relay were deMoulin, Kyle de Nobel, Justin Gottlieb and Harris Kester.
Shelton, Fritts, deMoulin and Robinson were the four sprinters that finished second in the 4×100 relay.
Fritts had his hand in other point grabs when he was second in the 400 and fifth in the 200.
Gottlieb was fourth in the 800 run, deMoulin gained four team points by finishing fourth in the grueling 400 and Robinson likewise brought in four points with a fourth-place in the 100.
In the 1600 distance run, de Nobel had a sixth place showing.
There had been no state meet held in 2020 because of the cancelled proceedings ruined by the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Jefferson’s sprinters paced the totaling of points, but couldn’t have outpaced the field of teams without the 25 points contributed by the other six athletes who were not short-distance runners.