After a year without any track meets in the area, I finally
got to experience the excitement again! One
of the longest running (yea, that's a pun!) Track and Field meets in the area,
the 46th Annual Bonner Relays was this past Friday night.
The norm for this meet is cold, wet, windy and probably one
of the most fun to attend of all the meets in the area. It's a true "Relay" meet. Three entries in each field event and you
score based on adding up the three and the longest or highest number wins. It's also really early in the season and so
the athletes may - or may not - be quite ready to figure out the technique in
the triple jump. A few stumbles and a
few scratches aren't unusual at this meet. But it's the first meet of the season in the area and what better way to
start than the Harding Bonner Relays - a true tradition in track and field in
the Memphis area.
I would say the D2 Small Division should probably keep their
eyes on Harding again this year. Both
the girls and boys took the top team spot in this meet. The boys were dominant with their win giving
themselves a solid cushion on the runner up spot by Briarcrest. The strength of the running game for Harding
and their jumps is what helped them keep this meet trophy in the home
display! As I mentioned, the field events are scored as
relays so if you can manage to get your team up near the top, you have a good
chance of getting a good start to the meet. Harding boys were able to do that. They swept the Triple jump with their 1, 2 and 3 place result with great
jumps by Jaxon Toney (39-9.5), Justin Davis (37-9.0) and Joshua Dabney (35-8). Had three of the top four in the long jump,
were able to grab the first and second place for the high jump and scored a
sweep in the pole vault as well. Hard to
beat someone at this meet with a start like that.
Briarcrest boys gave it their shot at trying though
getting 52 points and the runner up spot Friday. And yes, another pun, as the Saints Nate Bledsoe
(44-3.5) and Lawson Ewing (40-6.5) started out with some new PR's and a 1-2
finish for the shot! Lawson also PR'd in
the discus and threw 134-9 to get a runner up spot in that event.
Using some balanced effort across all the events, the
Harding Girls were able to take the top spot by a relatively comfortable margin
of 20 points. Probably getting all three
girls in the top 5 of the Discus event might be considered their best event at
this meet Friday. Emily Howard (79-6),
Morgan Nunnally (75-6) and Trinity Malone (75-0) came in 3rd, 4th
and 5th respectively. Usually
you see athletes running closely together in distance races see some success,
but in this case, the Harding Three in the Discus matched that strategy and it
certainly seemed to be an advantage at this meet.
Runner up Friday was St. Mary's Episcopal. They were a close 5 points from both
Hutchison and Briarcrest, so the race for second was a close match between
three D2 competitors. Might be
interesting to see how that plays out the week of May 10th this
season! Like Harding, St. Mary's won
with a very well-balanced group of athletes. It looked like the St. Mary's long jumpers followed the Harding throwers
in that they all jumped closely matched attempts. Three in the top 6 for the long jump tends to
put a few points on your board in this meet and gets you that top spot.
We aren't all back to normal with Track and Field meets,
still a few things to work out and get through. But the meets are starting again. Athletes are competing again. Training
is ramping up on all the track in the area. The rust is finally coming off. And, probably the most important thing about starting out the year at
the Bonner Relays, it didn't rain this year! Now that is a sign of just good things to come!
It's good to be back - and see you on the Track,
Coach Ted
