BURLINGTON — Proving to be the fastest and most athletic team in the field Saturday, the Richmond Senior High School boys’ track and field team won an out-of-town invitational.
Traveling to Burlington, the Raiders and head coach John Rich won the Cummings High School Invitational.
One of 21 teams listed on the final scoresheet, the Raiders topped the list with 84 points. That was a 10-point cushion over second-place Corvian Community School (74 points).
The only Mid-South Conference team participating in the event, Richmond scored points in 11 events and competed in 15 total events.
Several individual Raiders or relay teams made history by either surpassing the previous meet record or setting a new meet record in five events.
Setting new meet records were senior Keonta Pegues (long jump), senior Domonic Tillman (triple jump) and the 4x100-meter relay team of seniors Christian Surgent, Pegues, Amer Morrison and Tyrese Collins.
Pegues won the long jump with his distance of 22 feet, 2 inches. That broke the previous record by one inch. Tillman’s first-place distance of 45 feet, 0 inches in the triple jump surpassed the previous record of 44 feet, 4 inches.
Flying around the track, Surgent, Pegues, Morrison and Collins clocked in at 41.99 seconds, which was well ahead of second-place Corvian (43.79 seconds). No previous record time was posted online, but it was noted Richmond’s time was the new meet record.
Surgent (400-meter dash) and junior Jeremiah Covington (discus) each surpassed the previous meet record but were outdone by the end of Saturday’s meet.
Surgent took second in the open 400 with a time of 50.12 seconds, beating the previous record of 50.41 seconds. Tyler Adams (Hillside High School) claimed the new record of 48.89 seconds.
Covington’s fourth-place throw of 142 feet, 2 inches in the discus beat the previous mark by exactly three feet. Northern Guilford High School’s Michael-Joshua Smith won the event (166 feet, 5 inches).
Pegues also set the new meet record in the 100-meter dash preliminaries (10.84 seconds), but it didn’t count because it was in the qualifying race.
Richmond’s point total was added to by Pegues’ second-place time of 11.05 seconds in the 100-meter dash.
The Raiders also had a trio of third-place finishes from Collins, Pegues and Tillman.
Collins was third in the open 100 (11.20 seconds), Pegues ran a third-place time of 22.38 seconds in the 200-meter dash and Tillman was third in the long jump (21 feet, 5 inches).
Three other events ended in fourth place – Morrison (200-meter, 22.50 seconds); the 4x200-meter relay team (1:33.07); and the 4x400-meter relay team (3:43.72).
Junior Elijah Ingram was Richmond’s only fifth-place result, taking fifth in the shot put with a throw of 46 feet, 7 inches.
The Raiders will compete once this week before spring break. They’ll travel to Overhills High School Thursday for a Mid-South Conference meet, which will begin at 4 p.m.
