02/25/16 -- Johnson City, TN -- In its second year, the return of the Tennessee State Championships after a 30 year hiatus builds on a great first year. Qualifiers from the KYA HS Indoor Classic, the Vanderbilt HS Indoor Invite and from other meets around the region have descended on ETSU to show what they have. Indoor track is now encouraging teams to get their kids out earlier and focus on not only conditioning, but quality training for nationally recognized meets. A lot of these athletes have competed Unattached or on a club team all indoor season. This weekend they will compete alongside their HS teams for the team title! Below is a quick overview of some of the meet:
Sprints
Mckenzie Ethridge (Signal Mountain) and Diamond Battle (Battle Ground Academy) lead the way in the 60/200 with Ethridge narrowly leading Battle in both events. Currently #1/2 in the 60 for the state, both are in the top 40 sprinters in the country.
Amelia Thiesing (Centennial) is the top ranked 400 athlete set to compete with her club teammate (Kindersport) Amber Tanner (Ravenwood) being the top ranked athlete in the 60H.
Jeremy McDowell (Maplewood Comprehensive) and Kashif Warren (Austin-East) match the girls as the top two ranked TN 60m sprinters followed closely by Dobyns-Bennett junior Bryce Barrett.
Both come back in the 200 led by Brooks as the top ranked 200 runner in the state.
Trevon Sanders (Stratford) leads the way as the top ranked 400 runner in the meet.
Chase Sholl (Rhea Co) enters the meet as the top ranked hurdler and #34 in the country. He is also a nationally ranked multi-athlete in outdoors.
Distance
Hailey Hendry (Brentwood) is nationally ranked in both the 800 and Mile (#42/34 respectively) and leads the way expecting a challenge in the mile from Ruth Wiggins (Briarcrest) and AAA State XC Champion Megan Murray (West) and Rebecca Story (CAK) who are ranked TN #2/3/4 behind Hendry. This expects to be one of the races of the meet.
Story comes back in the 2 mile as the current US #2 ranked 2-miler just one second behind the national leader. She will potentially face a challenge from Brittany Tolson (Powell) who is on a hot streak after a PR's in her last two meets.
Bruce Boles (West) is fresh off a brand new PR from last week's UK HS Invite where he ran 1:55.85. He will be the favorite ahead of 8 other runners who have run under 2 this indoor season.
Taylor Vroon and Brody Hasty both of Brentwood HS lead 6 other runners who have broken 4:30 in this early part of the year.
Nathan Longfellow (Cookeville) and Gashaw Duhamel (Oak Ridge) along with Ben Varghese (Daniel Boone) are set to battle it out in the boys 2 mile where they come in ranked #2/3/4 this indoor season with season bests within 7 seconds of each other.
Field
Tyra Gittens (Ensworth) comes into the meet ranked US#12 in the Long Jump and US #17 in the High Jump and is the prohibitive favorite in both events.
Jordan Lesh (Harpeth Hall) also comes into the Triple Jump nationally ranked currently sitting at US #35 in her only meet this indoor season. Jumping 38 feet.
Allie Hughes (Germantown) and Taylor Pickett (Brentwood) currently are ranked TN#1/2 in the Pole Vault separated by a quarter of an inch. Watching this battle will be epic.
Camryn Bowman (Signal Mountain) comes ranked TN #1 in both the Weight and Shot and looks to put on a show for all the throwing fans.
US#8 Long Jumper Derek Flatford (Anderson Co) leads the way by a good margin as he is ranked #1 in TN as well.
Jordan Jeffers (Dobyns-Bennett) is the favorite in the Triple Jump ranked just outside of the US top 50.
Jake Poczobut (Knoxville Catholic) looks strong coming in for the HJ ranked TN #1 following his performance at the Vanderbilt HS Invite.
The boys Pole Vault stands to be an exciting competition with TN#1 Jack Crouch (Centennial) leading a slew of top Pole Vaulters including most of the state's top 10 jumpers.
Cole Patterson (Halls) leads the way for the boys Shot ranked US#16 with a massive toss of 59-01.50 which was a 2 foot PR at Vandy. Hopefully he can break that 60 foot barrier.
Hardin Valley leads the way in the boys Weight Throw with Tim Frizzell as the favorite over teammates Ricky Padron and Chris Perry, both ranked in the state's top 5 throwers.
It will be an exciting day of competition featuring most of the state's top ranked athletes and even several nationally ranked athletes. Come on out to ETSU or follow Knoxville Youth Athletics on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter for the latest. Use #TNSTATE16 to share your photos and tweets on social media platforms.