Six Top 3 finishes at the Class 5A Boys’ State Track and Field Championships at Jefferson’s Memorial Stadium over the weekend propelled Southwest DeKalb to its ninth state track title 58-44 over Banneker.

The victory gave Coach Napoleon Cobb his eighth title at Southwest DeKalb and 11th overall (won 3 titles at Gordon) in what could be his final season coaching the Panthers.

Sitting in 12th place after the field events, the Panthers came out on Saturday and quickly made their presence known as the 4×100 meter relay team of Travis Bacon, Terry Conwell, Terryon Conwell and Justin Tomlin ran a time of 41.26 to capture the event.

The win started the ball rolling for Southwest as sophomore Terry Conwell followed up the relay with a silver medal performance in the 400 meter dash (47.90) and freshman Justin Tomlin was fourth (49.20) to pick up 13 more points for the team while making the 17 point deficit to Starr’s Mill disappear.

Sophomore Terryon Conwell picked up a silver medal in the 100 meter dash (10.71) for eight more points putting the team solidly in the lead with 40 points.

The Conwells finished third (Terryon, 21.40) and fifth (Terry, 21.78) in the 200 meter dash to score 10 points and put the Panthers at an unreachable 50 points for any other teams with two events remaining in the meet.

The Panthers 4×400 meter relay team of Tomlin, Raymond White, Terry Conwell and Terryon Conwell wrapped up the meet with a silver medal finish (3:14.74) for the final total of 58, well ahead of Banneker’s 44.

Montavious Coleman contributed to the six Top 3 finishes by taking second in the discus throw (162.01.00).

Coupled with Cedar Grove’s win in Class 3A, The Panthers’ victory gave DeKalb County a state track title for the ninth consecutive year and 14 overall in the past nine seasons (2007-2015). It was also the fifth time in the nine years for the school district to win two state tracks titles in the same season (2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015).

The state championship streak was started in 2007 as Southwest DeKalb won the Class 4A girls’ title on the way to three consecutive and four out of five state titles (2007, 2008, 2009, 2011).

Stephenson would give the district two teams in the Top 5 at the Class 5A state meet this year with a fourth place finish of 35 team points.

Junior Denzel Harper was the catalyst for the Jaguars as he captured two gold medals by taking the long jump (23-03.50) for the second consecutive season and the 300 meter hurdles (37.81) to account for 20 of the 35 points by Stephenson. Stephenson also got a bronze medal in the 4×100 meter relay with a time of 41.88.

Clarkston picked up a Top 15 finish by tying for 13th with Lithia Springs and Chapel Hill with 14 team points.

The Angoras were led by Abbas Abkar with his gold medal winning performance in the 800 meter run (1:54.43) to pick up Clarkston’s 11th all-time gold medal in state track and field competition. The last gold medal performance by an Angora was the 2006 110 meter hurdle title won by Johnny Simpkins.

CLASS 6A
Lakeside was 21st out of 45 teams and Tucker was in a tie for 30th in the Class 6A State Track and Field Championships at Jefferson.

Davis Stockwell led the Vikings with a silver medal in the 1600 meter run (4:15.91) and a sixth place in the 3200 meter run (9:29.99).

Tucker’s 4.5 points were put up by Joshua Vann with a tie for fourth place in the high jump (6-04.00).