Performer Of The Week
Every week this season we will be conducting a poll from beginning Monday and ending Wednesday to highlight the performances from the previous week. This will give us an opportunity to showcase the best talent in Tennessee. Though some athletes will likely lay down marks every meet that are worthy of being in the poll every time, our goal is to cast a wide net and showcase a vast array of athletes from all parts of the state. Polls open Monday and close Wednesday at midnight.
Ensworth Girls Relays
The Ensworth Tigers set the tone early in the season with a 48 flat in the 4x100m relay at one of their home meets. It wasn't until Thursday that they improved on that mark lowering their TN #1 by over half a second to 47.42 en route to victory and a new Great Eight Invitational meet record. The quartet included Erin Schuh, Jayda Woods, Jaloni Cambridge, and Erica Douglas. Douglas and Cambridge would double back and close the night with another TN #1 as well on the 4x400m relay pairing up with Addison Hartle and Claire McGehee.
Their 3:59.53 made them the first team in the state under the four minute mark this season. While our projection may have the Tigers as an underdog in our Virtual Meet posted last week, it's hard to see Coach Johnson not having a winning combination of athletes on his squad this year. It's strengths vs weaknesses against Harpeth Hall. Ensworth will rack up points in sprints. Harpeth Hall will rack up points in distances. Who will scramble for the most leftover points? Should be a fun match up to keep track of but if it comes down to the mile relay at the end of the night it's pretty clear after Thursday the Tigers are in the driver's seat for that event.
Mariah Ivery - GPS
Sticking with Division II Class AA and athletes that will play a factor with how the team standings will shake out is GPS's Mariah Ivery. Last week at McCallie Mid-South Classic, she doubled up the two-lap races running leadoff for the Bruiser's 4x800m relay and winning the open 800m with a 2:21.84. We talked after that race about her plans moving forward for the season.
On cue, she ran the 400m this week at the Front Runner - Chattanooga Area Top 16 with a new 400m Personal Best of 57.20 which ranks her TN #3 overall. She doubled back an event later to also win the 800m. Four runs in one day on May 25th is a tall order for anyone but the 400m/800m double is particularly brutal. If this weekend acted as a dress rehearsal for Ivery for that race combination later this month its safe to say she'll be able to handle it.
Eriyanna Reed - Hillsboro
Sticking with the 400m run, the athlete that sits a top that event is the defending state champion Eriyanna Reed who last week, posted a TN #1 time of 56.85 winning the Nashville City Championships which was a season best by over a second. She followed that up with another big victory on Thursday at Great Eight dipping below 57 again with a 56.97.
Her brief indoor season is one of the reasons you can't really read too much into the results that come out of the winter months. She never broke a minute over two races and ran close to a personal worst high school time in her one 200m dash but I've covered her enough to know she thrives when weather starts to improve and the stadium lights come on. Her performance on Thursday is almost .7 seconds ahead of where she was at this point last season. Should be fun to monitor if she can top her Personal Best of 55.68 before she moves on the UAB.
Gabrielle Boulay - Centennial
When I received a text during the Tennessee State Indoor Championships that said "some girl from Centennial just won the 800m" my immediate reaction was "I guess another runner from California moved in this summer." Upon further review of our database, Gabrielle Boulay had four Tennessee based accounts dating all the way back to 2013 when she attended Windstead Elementary in Franklin. Due to injury and COVID she did not make it to the track until this past indoor season where her lone effort was a 2:21.58 800m in Johnson City. Over three outdoor races she has steadily walked that time down to 2:14.08 which now sits as the #2 overall time in the state.
The runners sandwiching Boulay in the Division I AAA rankings are sisters Claire and Hayley Stegall. I'll be curious to see if this will be one of the events Claire Stegall, the only runner ahead of her in the rankings, chooses to run at state. With Nolensville being in contention for a state title, Stegall will likely just race to qualify in the their district and sectional meets coming up in every distance. Depending on how many points Hardin Valley can post in the field events in the AM session, this may make the decision for the Knights on how far they'll stretch the freshman on May 26th. If she ultimately opts out of the 800m, Boulay becomes the favorite with Hayley next best in the division at 2:17.
Kara Wilson - Signal Mountain
In our Virtual Meet projection for state last week, Signal Mountain, the defending champions in Small - Division I, were 10 points off of MLK who both find themselves in the revamped Division I Class AA. The scores may be a little skewed in Signals favor since Senior Kara Wilson ranked in scoring position in six events. Obviously she can only do four and if Coach Carpenter were wanting to maximize her usage at least two of those events would be used in Horizontal Jumps where this weekend she jumped two new Personal Bests in the long and triple jumping 17-9 and 36-4.25 respectively. Both marks rank Top 10 in the state but most importantly her triple ranks first in Class AA by over three feet while her long jump ranks 2nd by less than two inches. If Signal is going to have a chance of repeating, she'll need these same performances or better on May 24th on the runway and in whatever other two events she chooses to qualify in.