Cedar Grove and Henderson pulled away on finals day at the 2013 DeKalb County Middle School Track and Field Championships to capture the boys’ and girls’ titles, respectively, at Panthersville Stadium on Tuesday.
Cedar Grove held just a four point lead over Chamblee (24-20) after the field events and 1600-meter run finals on Saturday.
Rain postponed the meet from Monday to Tuesday and Cedar Grove captured two gold medals and finished in the top three of the individual results in five of the seven events to put up 62 points in winning 86-58 over Chamblee.
Netori Johnson (45-09.00) and Jediah Johnson (41-02.00) took first and third, respectively, in the shot put and Rayquan Bonner took second in the long jump (18-10.25) in Saturday’s opening day of competition to give Cedar Grove its early 24-20 lead.
Zavier Anderson won the gold medal in the 100 meter dash with a time of 11.64 and the 4x100 meter relay team captured gold in a time of 46.59 as Cedar Grove began to pull away. A second and sixth place finish in the 800 sprint medley also built the Cedar Grove lead by collecting 11 points in the event.
Chamblee’s second place finish was paced by Berhane Johnson’s victory in the 200 meter dash with a time of 23.88.
Tucker which finished third with 48 points got a victory in the long jump by Dakari Brown with a leap of 20-02.00, just three inches shy of the meet record.
Stephenson finished just one point shy of third with 47 points behind a gold medal from Tyrell Brown in the 400 meter dash with a time of 53.48 and an excellent time of 3:43.07 in the 4x400 meter relay for the gold.
Stone Mountain won the 800 spring medley with a time of 1:44.70.
Sam Ellis of Decatur’s Renfroe Middle School won both the 1600 meter run and the 800 meter run. He broke the meet record of 2:06.79 set in 2010 by Lukie Teah of Tucker with a time of 2:05.61 in the 800. He cruised to a win in the 1600 with a time of 4:59.2.
It was Cedar Grove’s first track title since the 2007 season and second overall in the past seven years tying Chapel Hill (2009-2010) and one behind Henderson (2008, 2011-2012).
The Henderson girls’ blew away the competition with four gold medals and three silver medals in capturing their first championship since the 2008 season 97-48 over Stephenson.
Morgan Mihalis won the 1600 meter run in a time of 5:38.49 to jump start Henderson into a tie with defending champion Chamblee on the first day of competition.
Syi Ojo clocked a time of 12.66 in the 100 meter dash in taking the gold on finals day as Henderson also swept the 4x400 meter relay (4:17.74) and the 800 sprint medley relay (1:57.57).
Stephenson’s second place finish was the best over the past seven seasons for the Lady Jaguars. Joie Royer was the only individual to win two individual gold medals in the girls’ championship with wins in the 200 meter dash (25.80) and 400 meter dash (58.71).
Champion finished third overall with 45 points led by the one-two finish of LaShannon McCombs (35-10.25) and Ebony Upshaw (33-07.25) in the girls’ shot put.
Chamblee’s Rachel Elder won the long jump with a leap of 17-00.50 to help Chamblee to its fourth place finish.
Nina John took the 800 meter run with a time of 2:34.79 and Cedar Grove’s 4x100 relay team won the even with a time of 53.09 to round out the gold medal winners.
Mark Brock is the Information Officer/Statistician/Web Manager for DeKalb County Schools Athletics.