Charlie Harper Relays
This Friday evening event is named after long-time Brentwood Academy coach, Charlie Harper. Talking with the coach, you get a sense of the past and how he was instrumental in so many state championship wins over the years. Coach Harper understands track and field. He walks around the track meet giving you a feeling that he's just making sure the event goes off easily and smoothly. With as many wins as this coach has, I get the feeling nobody is going to mess up while his namesake is tied to a track meet. Even the weather didn't want to mess up anything and so gave us a beautiful evening for the meet.
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The girls shot and discus looked pretty good this cool evening with Katherine Coffey of Brentwood High taking first in both with her 38-11.5 and 130-2 throws. Guess traveling just a few blocks down the street makes for a fun "away" meet for this young thrower! On the boy's side, Jay Roberts did the same with a 141-02 and a really good toss of 51-7.5 in the shot. Two great tosses by a couple of very good athletes. I believe these two athletes also were chosen for the Brian Rawls Throwers award that is given to the top throwers of the meet. That award is named after a young thrower that left before his time in a car accident caused by a distracted driver. Like anyone really needs a reason to put the phone down when driving - unfortunately that's something very few people are intelligent or self-confident enough to actually do!
A couple other field events worth mentioning would be the boy's pole vault with several of the boys taking it over the twelve foot mark. The top mark went to Jack Crouch of Centennial with a vault of 14-10 and just short of his PR. The runner up spot went to Franklin High's Trent Marable with a 13-6 that was six inches over his PR. So a good day for vaulters for sure. On the girls side, last years A-AA state champion vaulter Mary Leichner looks to be in good form again this season with a vault of six inches higher than what it took to win state last year. Her 10-6 was just under her 10-9 set earlier this year but certainly has her poised and ready to compete in Murfreesboro in a few weeks. It's certainly getting exciting this time of year!
And of course, if you were near the track stadium - like within a kilometer or so - you could hear the clapping as George Patrick took his shot at breaking the meet record in the long jump. George just about leaped out of the pit to get the record set in 2012 by the slimmest of margins... 1.5 inches over the previous record to set a new one at 24-0.5. That jump also is a state leading best this season. I believe the folks at Brentwood Academy certainly get into their athletes when they see them about to set some great performances! Great to see!
The boys triple jump was a close one too, with Independence athlete Nathan Johnson going 44-1.25 and Desmond Cambridge (Ensworth) just another inch and a quarter behind at 44-00. The girls triple was a nail bitter too with Taylor Pickett of Brentwood high going 36-2.5 to win and Ravenwoods Sarah Klippenstein right behind her in second with 35-11.5. Then in third was Oakland's Imani Udoumana just a half inch away at 35-11 even. That's close! Tight competition just a couple weeks before the state championships mean one thing - athletes are really fine tuning their craft and getting ready for a good time at Murfreesboro!
A very rare relay, 4x1600, named after BA standout distance runner, Andrew Bumbalough, starts out the running events as the field winds down. This is quite the relay and for someone that has worked the finish line at meets for so many years, kind of a tough one to keep track of the laps and which athlete is at what point in the race! All four runners get in a 1600M run. Sometime along this race the finish line crew has to keep track of the winner. The winning girl's time, set by Signal Mountain, was 22 minutes and 55.46 seconds. That was around a half minute ahead of Fred J. Page's runner up time of 23:27.22. Wow, pretty tight race for that distance. The boys was even tighter with Brentwood High School finishing in 18:26.09 and Independence runner up in 18:56.53. Half a minute after four guys each running four laps! This was how the running events started out. And then it got better.
The shuttle hurdle race was up and the girls had a really tight race with Briarcrest Christian team of Rachel Sullivan, Grayson Raper and state 300H champion Alyssa Neuberger taking first in 51.42. Alyssa anchored that group and had to stay strong at the end to fight off a surging Brentwood Academy team that came in second in 51.66. Third was Centennial in 53.10. Overall, a close hurdle race that really is fun to watch! The boy's side wasn't so much a question of who would win but by how much. Brentwood Academy having two of the top 10 hurdlers in the state (George Patrick #1 and Cameron Johnson #6) took the win in a meet record of 44.52. McCallie took second in 47.10 probably showing us a bit of what the D2 state hurdle race could be looking like between both Brentwood Academy and McCallie having some of the best around. For the second running event of the evening, well, like I said, it just gets better as the night goes on.
The 4x100 is always a very exciting race to watch. It takes a strong start, good second leg,
nice hand off to the third leg and precision on the exchange to the
anchor. And then, everyone has to run
their best and finish strong. The
Brentwood Academy team ran a state leading time of 42.47. I'd say they put together everything just
right. Independence came in with a
runner up finish with their 42.69 time to get into the 8th spot in
the state rankings. Two very fast teams
and a top state wide finish at this meet!
I probably will skip over some events, but I can't do that with the 4x800. The girls 4x800 was pretty appealing to start with, as several of the teams came in with some really good seeds. Once the gun went off, it got fast. Independence came in fourth with an impressive time of 10:06.07. Then just ahead of them, Centennial high was running to a 10:03.86 that put them in the 13th fastest time in the state and third in the meet. But then it started to get better. Brentwood Academy posted a time of 9:51.95 that is currently the 10th best time in the state and just a couple of seconds off the best D2 time in the state. Brentwood High school, just down the street, came into the meet with the fastest 4x800 girls team around and posted a 9:22.57 time that sets them at the top of the state rankings for the event! Again, this meet brings some great performances!
But as the girls were finishing their performance, the boys watching must have felt they needed to step up or they would get upstaged by these great times the girls were posting. So... as the gun went off, you can see the intensity in the guy's faces. Several of the top seeded teams had times under 9 minutes and a couple a just over 8 minute mark. So fast was in the cards for this evening. In almost a dejavu moment, Centennial comes in third with a time of 8:06.49 that is a #4 state wide time. In second was Brentwood Academy at 7:45.73 that is the second best time this season for the event. Winning, with a state record time of 7:43.93 was Brentwood High School. This wasn't a just come out and have some fun on a Friday night race - this was an all-out race as hard as you can night! Gotta love it!
There were several top state performances at this meet. The boys SMR set a top 3 and top 9 mark for the state. The girls SMR had four performances in the top 20 for the state. The Distance Medley Relay ran by Brentwood Academy won in a 12:33.39 time that was only just over a second slower than the top statewide mark for the event. Ravenwood High ran 12:50.56 that set the 4th best in the state to come in the runner up spot at the meet. Then Briarcrest (13:41.82), Ensworth (13:42.17) and Centennial (13:45.36) rounded out the top five that were all in the top 25 overall in the state for this event that you see a lot in the college levels but not so much in high school.
Let's jump to the end and the 4x400 relay. This Olympic relay finishes off almost all of meets we run. At this meet, and like I said, just a medium sized Friday night meet, the performances were intense. The 4x400 relay was that cherry on the top as the Ravenwood high girls team took a strong first in 3:57.37. That places them at the top for this meet and also at the top of the state rankings this season! In second was the Briarcrest Christian team with a 4:04.94 that is a top 8 statewide performance and has tehm in the 2nd spot for the D2 division. That's setting them up for a very close showdown come late May in Murfreesboro. Two state top tens for the girls in the 4x400.
Now let's see how the boys did. Coming in fourth overall was Centennial high with a time of 3:27.39 and Independence just ahead of them with a 3:27.12 (yea... that close!). But hang on, Oakland ran a 3:22.18 that was a close second... I mean one second away from getting Brentwood Academy's winning time of 3:21.05. That was one close race at the end of a very nice night of competition. Oh, those top 4 performances ranked in the top 15 overall in the state. With Oakland's and Brentwood Academy taking the #2 and #1 performances this season!
This was my first time attending a track meet at the Brentwood Academy venue. It's a six lane track that is set up almost perfectly for someone who is a huge fan of track & field! It's surrounded by beautiful trees and has probably the most scenic shot put area I've ever seen. I spent some time sitting on the bench on the back straightaway watching some of the events run by (great spot for a bench by the way). Considering the huge number of talented athletes over the years training at the facility, I expected something a little more hardened or maybe just more worn out. Well, not sure exactly what I expected but the venue was positively pristine, very nicely set up, and the BA coaches did everything to make people feel comfortable at the track meet. Yea, but not exactly a relaxing evening on the back deck... more like a run your heart out and post some great times... guess that's pretty much what epitomizes what Charlie Harper was all about!
One of the best track meets I've been to in a long time... both for the performances by the athletes and the general meet itself! Great timing to get prepped for the Sectionals and the State championship coming up. Good going coach Perry and all the Brentwood Academy coaches and helpers!
See you on the Track,