Pate, Kelly dominate sectional meet

BRENTWOOD – Janel Pate and Brittany Kelly maintain that winning wasn’t their primary focus during the Section 3-AAA track meet at Brentwood.

Still, the Hillsboro junior and the Northeast senior walked away with eight first-place finishes between them in their final warmups for next week’s Class AAA meet.

Pate swept the 100-, 200- and 400-meter sprints on Friday. Kelly won the high jump, long jump and pentathlon earlier in the week before winning the 100- and 300-meter hurdles on Friday.

“I just wanted to make it (to state),” said Pate, the runner-up in the 100 and third-place finisher in the 200 last spring after winning both events as a freshman. “But I’m competitive. My coaches were like, ‘Just make it, just make top four (to qualify for state). But I’m competitive. I like to win.”

Pate posted a 12.14-second time in the 100, a 24.61 in the 200 and a 57.63 in the 400, barely holding off Antioch’s De’Airis Weakley in all three.

“She pushes me,” Pate said of her summer track teammate.

Kelly, an Ole Miss signee, ran a 14.30 in the 100 hurdles to edge teammate Sonja White and a 44.16 in the 300 hurdles.

“My goal right now is to work on my technique a lot more, to work on getting faster,” said Kelly, the defending AAA champion in both hurdles, the long jump and pentathlon. “There’s going to be competition at the state, but right now it’s about getting ready for that.”

Behind Kelly and White, Northeast scored 119 points to place second in the team standings behind Brentwood’s 136. The host school swept team honors, with the boys compiling 120 points and holding off a late charge by Ravenwood (119).

“You’ve got two teams that scored over 100 points,” Brentwood coach Ronnie Seigenthaler said. “That’s a compliment to Ravenwood’s depth as well as ours. On the girls’ side, you saw some depth and versatility in the field events and in the distance events.”

Reach Maurice Patton at 615-259-8018 and on Twitter @mopatton_sports.