The Arabia Mountain junior varsity girls claimed the 2023 DCSD Junior Varsity Track and Field Championships in record setting fashion.
The Arabia Mountain Lady Rams set two new meet records on the way to a convincing 162-79 win over the field in the 2023 DeKalb County Junior Varsity Girls’ Track and Field Championships on Wednesday at Godfrey Stadium.
Arabia Mountain won eight of the 18 events on the day as they compiled a JV Championships record 162 points and set another record in the 4×200-meter relay in winning by 83 points over second place Miller Grove (79). Decatur (69) was third followed by Towers (67) and Martin Luther King (63) as teams with over 60 points in the meet.
A 50-point showing in the field events jump started the big day led by gold medal wins by Ololade Caulker and Angelina Billingsley in a tie for the high jump (4-08.00) and Jermani Govan winning the discus (81-02.00).
Eternity Newell and Jayla Mims got things rolling on the track by taking gold the 100-meter hurdles (16.89) and 100-meter dash (12.90), respectively. A record setting win in the 4×200-meter relay with a time of 1:46.25 broke their own one-year record of 1:51.71 set in the event last season.
The Rams followed up the 4×200 win with a victory in the 4×100 relay (50.46) as they took the gold in two of the four relay events. Trinity Balfour, the girls’ meet MVP, came up big winning the title in both the 200-meter dash (26.69) and the 400-meter dash (1:00.56).
Miller Grove’s India Mickle won the 300-meter hurdles gold. (Photo by Mark Brock)
Miller Grove’s second place finish was paced by India Mickle’s first place finish in the 300-meter hurdles (49.12), a second-place finish in the 4×200 relay (1:48.88), a third-place finish in the 4×400 relay (4:21.55) and two bronze medals by Summer Glaze in the long jump (15-03.25) and triple jump (32-10.00).
Decatur swept all the distance events led by new records in the 4×800 relay and the 3200-meter run. The 4×800 relay team ran to a record best of 10:31.66 breaking the old mark held by Miller Grove (2018) of 11:41.32. Margaret Welp knocked 34 seconds off the 3200 record of 12:54.47 held by Dunwoody’s Julie Hensley (2016) with a time of 12:18.71.
Olivia Sawyer doubled up winning both the 800-meter run (2:31.00) and 1600-meter run (5:35.02) for the Lady Bulldogs.
Towers fourth-place finish was keyed by Tracy Yelegoiyee’ record setting mark in the pole vault of 8-00.00 as she broke the mark, she tied of 6-00.00 a year ago with original record holder Cara McLain of Dunwoody who set the height in 2015. Towers picked up another meet record as Nashari Edwards took the triple jump title at 33-09.00 to break Jayla Hernton’s (Stephenson) leap of 33-08.00.
Arabia Mountain’s Trinity Balfour won gold i n the 200-meter and 400-meter dashes and was named MVP for her contributions to the Lady Rams win. (Photo by Mark Brock)
Martin Luther King got a pair of gold medals to put them in fifth place in the team standings. Nia Moore won the shot put with a toss of 30-07.00, just 0.25 short of the record to win the event. The 4×400 relay team finished the night by winning the event in 4:21.55.
Keamaura Robinson of Columbia took home the gold in the long jump with a 16-07.50 leap to win by 14.50 inches over her nearest competitor.
The championship win was the second in eight tries for the Lady Rams as they also won in 2019. The event was not held in 2020 due to the pandemic. Miller Grove and Stephenson lead the way with three wins apiece.
Stephenson held the previous high team score with 122 back in 2018.
See links below for full results and updated records: