2015 Middle School Boys’ Track County Champions — Tucker Tigers
Tucker Middle School literally ran away to a sweep of the DeKalb County Middle School Track and Field Championships on Monday at Panthersville Stadium.
The Tigers captured their second consecutive title taking the lead for good as the 800 sprint medley team (David Davis, Jaiden McFadden, Justin Shelley and Isaiah Dunson) won the first gold medal of the meet for Tucker with a time of 1:44.90 to pick up the 10 points. The win put Tucker ahead of Champion (led after field events and 1600 run) and Chamblee which both had 26 points after the five events.
Tucker followed up the sprint medley victory by sweeping the top 2 spots in the 4×100 relay team of Justin Shelley, Jaiden McFadden, Jason Jones and David Davis taking the gold in 46.23 and “B” team of Nathaniel Morgan, Lamonte Coleman, Vondarius Boynton and Kentavious Rogers in second in 47.28.
The sweep put the Tigers up 45-30 over Champion with Chamblee in third with 26.
A gold (McFadden, 11.53) and bronze (Shelley, 11.84) finish in the 100 meter dash all but wrapped up the second consecutive title for the Tigers as they held a 31 point lead (66-35) over Champion and 32 over Cedar Grove which took over third place with 34 points.
Henderson’s Brian Herron set a pair of county middle school meet records. (Photo by Mark Brock)
Henderson’s Brian Herron was the biggest story on the day as the eighth grader set a pair of meet records in impressive fashion.
Herron had broken the 200 meter dash record 22.88 set a year ago by Tucker’s Justin Long in the preliminaries with a time of 22.50 on Saturday. He did it one better knocking another .07 off the time in the meet finals for a new record of 22.43.
The second meet record for Herron came in the finals of the 400 meter dash as he shattered the seven year old record of 51.01 set by Stone Mountain’s Tamarick Johnson in 2008. Herron ran away from the pack winning by almost five seconds with a new record time of 49.99. He also ran the third leg of the 4×400 meter relay making up a big gap that helped Henderson finish second in the race after being almost dead last when he took the baton.
Other individual winners include Hasim Smith in the 800 meter run (2:12.96), Max Mower of Peachtree in the 1600 meter (4:58.45), Champion’s Demetreus McDonald won the long jump (20-00.00, just 5 inches off the record) and Chamblee’s Tanner Duffin won the shot put (45-06.00)
Cedar Grove’s 4×400 relay team (Travonte Jackson, Terrence Lewin, Faheem Laaw and Chase Scott) won in 3:45.92 to nip Henderson by .10 seconds despite Herron’s big come back on the third leg and Cedar Grove’s distance medley team (Rayequan Derrico, Demetri Cooper, Davarious Harris and Chase Scott) won the gold in 4:04.55.
GIRLS
2015 Middle School Girl’s County Track Champions — Tucker Lady Tigers
The Lady Tigers made it a clean by winning three events and scoring 14 or more points in four events on the way to 86 points to pull away from Miller Grove (57) and Champion (56) for the title.
Tucker was trailing Henderson by 22 points (34-12) after four events, but began to close the gap by placing first and third in the 800 sprint medley relay to rack up 16 points. The ‘A’ relay team of Jessica Shelley, Joann Nguyen, Olivia Bedie and Ayo Olubadewo took the gold in 1:58.69 while Kayla McGriff, Unique Mason, Karmen McShann and Tylar Permenter teamed up for the silver in 2:02.81.
Eight more points came in the 4×100 meter relay with a silver medal finish (52.77) and a seventh place finish (55.13) that put Tucker in the lead for good.
Tucker sprinter Jessica Shelley (far right) beat (l-r) Peachtree’s Yasmin Harrington, Tucker teammate Joann Nguyen and Miller Grove’s Kai Ngozi for the 100 meter dash gold. (Photo by Mark Brock)
Sprinter Jessica Shelley then took the lead capturing both the 100 meter (12.91) and 200 meter (26.50) dashes as Tucker picked up 14 points in each event to put the title away.
Defending champ Miller Grove had just 9 points after five events, but came roaring back with wins in the 4×10 meter relay (Chance Barnes, Kai Ngozi, Jordan Waller and Corta Washington), in the 400 meter dash by Washington (1:00.78) and the 4×400 relay (Barnes, Kiara Eubanks, Ngozi, and Waller) in 4:20.31.
The effort pulled the Lady Wolverines into second with 57 points and edged out Champion (56) by one point.
Champion’s third place finish was fueled by Kennedi Manning’s gold medal in the long jump (14-04.00).
Other individual winners’ include Cedar Grove’s Niya Walker in the shot put (35:06.00) and Decatur’s Maggie Carlton in the 1600 meter run (5:42.63) and 800 meter run (2:29.54) to match Tucker’s Shelley with two individual gold medals on the day.
Chamblee’s Distance Medley relay team (Dhylan Holmes, Savannah Lawrence, Lauren Griggs and Sharon Huckabee) won the gold with a time of 4:34.61 which was five seconds head of the Henderson squad.