CAMERON, N.C. — Just days after the Lady Raider track and field team won its lone home meet of the season, head coach Reggie Miller’s squad hauled in a second-place finish in the Viking Relays at Union Pines High School.
The Saturday meet saw just the girls’ team compete, as the Raiders and head coach Chris Campolieta took the day off. Out of the 12 competing teams, the Lady Raiders earned 72 points, just six points behind winner Hugh Cummings High School (78 points).
Both schools were way ahead of the rest of the competition, as Anson High School’s 49 points put the Lady Bearcats in third place.
“The girls track team did a great job at the Vikings’ invitational to win the runner-up champion trophy,” Miller said. “We stayed balanced in almost every event to score points. We lost by six points to the 2A indoor state champions. The girls left everything on the track, and I am so proud of all of them and their effort.”
There were a total of 14 events scored at the invitational, with the Lady Raiders earning three first-place finishes. Sophomore Jakerra Covington took first overall in the high jump, being the only competitor to clear the bar at 5’-0”.
Teammates Kibreanna Stewart and Korie Dawkins finished tied for fourth in the event, each jumping 4’-6”.
The other two first-place points came in the 4×100-meter relay and 4×100-meter throwers event. The team of Covington, Maddisyn Diggs, Monasia Kearns and Dymond McNeal finished the 4×100-meter relay in 50.07 seconds, less than a second faster than Cummings (50.91 seconds).
In the throwers event, Richmond finished with a time of 56.71 seconds, nearly four seconds better than second-place E.E. Smith High School (1:00.09).
Covington also raced to a second-place finish in the 100-meter dash, posting a time of 12.86 seconds. Cummings’ Allysia Farrar edged her with a time of 12.18 seconds. Finishing in fifth place was Diggs (13.18 seconds).
Freshman Rayana Shubert had a good day in the discus throw, finishing second with a distance of 88’-9”, which was just under four feet short of Gray’s Creek’s Kenya Hall (92’-6”). Teammate Tasheka Harrington placed 10th, throwing 67’-7”.
The Lady Raiders would also grab third-place finishes in the triple jump and 4×800-meter relay. Stewart took third in the triple jump, leaping out to a total distance of 33’-2” behind Kendall Jordan (37’-5”, Cummings) and Djamila Petersen (38’-3”, Pine Forest).
In the 4×800-meter relay, the team of Ariel Brown, Taliyah Cobb, Zymia McInnis and Mercedes Ingram finished in 11:21.12, roughly 28 seconds behind familiar opponent Pinecrest High School.
Brown earned more distance points by taking fourth in the 3200-meter run. She ran the two-miler in 13:15.99, just behind third-place finisher Katherine Reeves (13:04.52, Science and Math).
Senior Taliah Wall, who won three events in Wednesday’s home conference meet, tallied a fourth-place finish in the long jump. Her mark of 15’-9” was just one inch behind Cummings’ Jydia Faucette. Dawkins finished 13th in the event (14’2.5”).
Other notable finishes for the Lady Raiders was Daviaonna Campbell’s fifth-place finish in the shot put (29’-11”), and Harrington’s sixth-place mark (28’11”) in the same event. Jamaya Bryant raced to a seventh-place finish in the 300-meter hurdles (51.57 seconds), while Wall was 11th (53.39 seconds).
Richmond will return to SAC action Thursday at Seventy-First High School (4 p.m.), and compete in the Pepsi Invitational on Saturday at Southern Lee High School (9 a.m.).
