With a little help from some late season roster additions, the Lady Blackhawks rolled up a massive point total to make off with the 4A-1 track championships.
Senior Jerika Schooley scored a very important 8 points with her second-place finish with junior Rilee Patrick accounting for 5 more points in distance running. In the 154-144 win over Berryville, their 13 combined points looms large.
Both Schooley and Patrick are important cogs in the Blackhawk softball program and are usually tied up with that sport but they had the chance to contribute to the school's track success last week and they took advantage. As former and veteran members of the track program, both athletes weren't novices and their contributions were appreciated.
Berryville probably didn't see the Blackhawk freight train coming as they have had their way with 4A competitors in this part of the state for some time now. With the same basic roster they had last year, the Bobcats most likely thought that this year was almost a lock.
Track and field is a sport like no other as it is the most basic of sports. Going back to the ancient Greeks, the sport has been around for thousands of years because of its basic-ness. It's about running, jumping and throwing.
Of course, there is technique involved, especially in the field events, that can turn an also ran into a winner, but there is nothing that succeeds like hard work. Half-hearted practicing invariably leads to half-hearted competing which leads to eventual if not abrupt failure. After the meet victory, coach Heather Wade most wanted to congratulate her athletes for the hard work they put in, the work they did that gave them the chance to accomplish what they did.
Sometimes it is hard to tell how good an athlete is in a lot of team sports as it is all so comparative. Say a person scores 30 points a game in basketball, that sounds great but is it in 7A ball or 1A ball. The level of play varies greatly between classes so points or yards or baskets, or batting averages are hard to quantify if you don't know against what level of competition those marks were made.
Track, on the other hand, is completely comparable. When my son ran the 200 meters in 21 way back when, that would be fast anywhere then, and now. if you are a female track athlete like Kelsey Norman of Crossett High School and you can jump 6'1" in the high jump, you are looking at major NCAA scholarship offers, no matter how good your team may be. Of course, if Norman's case, she is on a very good track team.
In track and field, success is measured in how much you improve. As long as your marks are getting better, your will do better. Few sports have such a graphic indicator of real progress.
Lady tracksters win final regular season meet
Though the information came in too late for the paper last week, the news that the girls track team had won their final regular season invitational was too good to just pass over entirely.
The team traveled to Cassville, Mo., to be the lone Arkansas school in attendance. The states and teams may have changed but the results didn't as the Lady 'Hawks captured another team championship to go with their rapidly expanding trophy haul for the season.
Pea Ridge won the meet with 135 followed by Reeds Spring with 119; McDonald County, 114; Cassville, 58; Aurora, 53; Southwest, 34; and Seneca, 10.
Reeds Spring scored 37 points in the last four events to make a run at our 'Hawks but it was too little too late. The 'Hawks assumed the lead from the outset and they were never headed.
Junior Mikhaela Cochran was again the high point leader for the 'Hawks. The tall 11th grader led the team with four gold medal performances. She won the 110 hurdles (17.36), high jump (4'6"), discus throw (100'2") and 300 hurdles (52.33).
Emma Pitts won the 100 (13.07) and Vanessa Wing captured the 400 (1:04.4) for the other gold medal performances. Pitts also took second in the 200 (28.8), third in the 400 (1:06.8) and sixth long jump (14'5") while Wing also took fourth in the high jump (4'6"). Other scorers were Gloria Vargas, 100, sixth 21.11 and 200, sixth 30.07; Lexi Bradrick, 1,600 fifth 6:6:29 and fifth 800 2:52.13; Casi Caton, fourth 800 2:49.6; Rilee Patrick, sixth 800 2:54.47; Kelsie Merritt, second 3,200 14:32.9; Liza McGowan, fourth, shot put 28'10" and sixth, discus 79'7"; and Ashtyn Mondy, fifth in the triple jump 29'9".
Pea Ridge won the 4x800 relay, took second in the 4x100 relay and finished third in the 4x400 relay. Relay names were not made available.
After the spikes are hung up after the 2014 season, more awards and honors will have been won by this year's girls high school track team than by any other local girls high school athletic team in many a decade, perhaps even setting a mark that was heretofore unmatched in school history.
Having an actual track and field facility for the team to practice on was to reap dividends and that it has.
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Editor's note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Editorial on 05/07/2014