SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. – With the 2017-18 school season coming to an end, Richmond Senior High School’s hopes of an athletic state title no longer rests solely on the shoulders of the No. 1 ranked Lady Raiders softball team. This past weekend, 19 Raider runners represented Richmond in the North Carolina Track and Field 4A Midwest Regionals at Pinecrest High School.
Eight of them secured spots in Saturday’s 4A state title meet, which will take place at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.
Richmond’s boys and girls relay teams both stamped their ticket to the title meet with strong runs in the 4x100-meter relay. For the Lady Raiders, it was senior Harmony Jones, sophomores Maddisyn Diggs and Monasia Kearns and freshman Jakerra Covington that completed the run with a time of 49.67 seconds in the second heat of the event. R
ichmond secured the fourth place spot by reaching the finish line one-one hundredth of a second faster than the team from High Point Central High School (49.68 seconds). Since the top four finishers in each event qualify for the state meet, the difference between a trip to Greensboro and the end of the season was decided by a millisecond.
The boys 4x100 relay was not quite as intense. The Raiders, consisting of seniors Dante Miller and Jaleen Baldwin, along with juniors Preston Coker and Malik Stanback, did what they have done all season. With an impressive time of 41.56 seconds, Richmond earned top honors in the event. According to milesplit.com, that is the 10th fastest time in the event all-time in North Carolina.
Fellow Sandhills Athletic Conference member Scotland High School finished the 4x100 in third place with a time of 42.47 seconds and will accompany the Raiders to Greensboro on Saturday.
In the 4x200 relay, Richmond’s boys (1:27.01) finished just behind Ronald Reagan High School (1:26.80). The second-place finish qualifies the Raiders to compete in that event as well on Saturday.
“We lost the 4x200, but Preston (Coker) wasn’t running in it,” Richmond boys track coach Chris Campolieta said of the second place run. “When he does run, hopefully we can win the 4x100 and 4x200 next week and show the state who the fastest school in the North Carolina is. It should be very close all around.”
Unfortunately, the 100-meter dash did not go quite as planned. Miller, Baldwin, and Coker dominated the Sandhills Athletic Conference in the event and Miller even posted some of the state’s best times throughout the season.
In the first heat of the 100-meter dash preliminaries, Baldwin led the way with a 10.81 second run and Coker finished fourth in the heat with an 11.02 second time. Both runners qualified for the finals in the event. In the second heat of the preliminaries, Miller, who was the favorite to win the event, was tagged with a false start violation and disqualified from competing in the finals ending his hopes for a state title.
In the finals, Baldwin was hit with a uniform violation which disqualified him from the final run leaving it all up to Coker. After the second preliminary heat, Coker had dropped from 4th to 6th in the overall standings and would need to get back into the top four in order to move on to the state title meet. Coker darted past Rocky River’s James Maye, East Forsyth’s Mizell Hall, and Ronald Reagan High’s Daniel Moyer to grab third place finish and a trip to Greensboro. All three of those runners had finished ahead of Coker in the preliminaries.
Baldwin recovered from his infraction in the 100-meter dash to snag a state title spot in the 200-meter. He finished in third place with a time of 22.48 seconds, while teammates Miller and Coker just missed out finishing in fifth and sixth, respectively.
Other Sandhills Ahtletic Conference members qualifying for the state title meet are:
Scotland
Sanya Lacue (girls 300-meter hurdles).
Pinecrest
Helen West (girls 400-meter dash), Macie Kavanaugh (girls 800-meter run), Carmen Alder (girls 1600-meter run, 3200-meter run), Natalia Peretz (girls Pole Vault), Taya McKeithan (girls shot put), AJ Williams (boys 400-meter run), T Jaden Gaddy (boys triple jump), and both boys and girls 4x400 relay teams.
Hoke County
Maya Singletary (girls 200-meter dash, 400-meter dash), Veronique Woodson (girls 100-meter hurdles, 300-meter hurdles, long jump), Hunter Hernandez (boys 200-meter dash), Kevin Thorpe (high jump), and the boys 4x100 relay team.
Lumberton
Keiana Campbell (girls shot put) and Kwashek Breeden (boys 110-meter hurdles).
Jack Britt
Huntyr Hopkins (high jump), Tyne Haverkate (high jump), Lakito Bynum (300-meter hurdles), Barry Elliott (long jump), and the boys 4x100 and 4x200 meter relay teams.
Seventy-First
Britney Chambers (girls 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash, and 400-meter dash).
The 4A state championship meet events will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Admission is $10.
