Lady Raider state track qualifiers (left to right) Sarah Pearson, Karson Young and Diana Davis
After a season of amazing performances, the Coffee County Lady Raider track team added another chapter in the remarkable success story of 2016 on Tuesday at the Sectional Meet at Riverdale. After the dust settled and the points were tallied, the Lady Raiders finished the meet in a 3rd place tie in the team standings with Oakland at 62 points, 1 point behind 2nd place Blackman. What makes the performance so remarkable is that Coffee County was only represented by 7 athletes at the Sectional and competed against 27 teams from Section 2.
More importantly, 3 Lady Raiders have qualified to compete at the state track meet in a total of 7 different events. This makes the 25th consecutive year that Coffee County will be represented at the state meet. Coffee County, who already had Sarah Pearson qualified in the Pentathlon, competed in 7 different events on Tuesday and claimed qualification scores in 6 of those events. Coach Stan Jarrell was ecstatic with the performance saying “I am so proud of our kids this year.”
Pearson and Karson Young each qualified in 3 individual events as Young will compete in the triple jump, the long jump and the 100M hurdles. Pearson qualified on Tuesday for the high jump, the 100M hurdles and the 300M hurdles. Additionally, Pearson qualified last month for the pentathlon. “I don’t know that we’ve ever had 2 people qualify in 3 individual events. Awesome effort on their part” added Coach Jarrell. Diana Davis also advanced to the state meet as she qualified in the pole vault.
Young finished with three 2nd place finishes and 2 new personal bests on the day. In the 100M hurdles, Young posted a time of 16.26. She also jumped personal records of 16’ 6” in the long jump and 34’10” in the triple jump. Pearson came in 4th place in the 100M hurdles with a time of 16.83. She also finished in 3rd place in the 300M hurdles and the high jump with personal record performances. Pearson ran the 300M hurdles in 48.29 and cleared 4’10” in the high jump. Davis finished in 3rd place in the pole vault with a jump of 9’6”.
The girls’ 4x800M relay team was the only non-qualifier for the Lady Raiders, but they also ran a season best time on 12:11.43. The relay team consisted of Renee Martin, Emily St. John, Makenzie Webb and Byanka Woods. For the Red Raiders, Reece Pratt threw a personal best of 111’ 5” to finish in 8th place.
The Spring Fling State Track Meet will take place all next week at MTSU’s Dean Hays Stadium. Pearson will be the first competitor for Coffee County as she will compete in the pentathlon on Monday(May 23rd) beginning at 10:30 AM. Davis will compete in the pole vault on Wednesday(May 25th) at 2 PM. Pearson and Young will compete on Thursday(May 26th) as Young will take part in the long jump at 9 AM. Young comes back for the triple jump at 10:15 and will compete in the 100M hurdles around 3:30 PM. Pearson takes part in the high jump at 12 PM, the 100M hurdles around 3:30 PM and the 300M hurdles sometime after 4 PM.
