Pearl Cohn Girls
First since 2008
Early last year, Coach Andre Davis joined me for a long form interview as the season was ramping up to mainly talk about his boys team but he said this at the 1:30 mark and it's fitting to plug that quote in here.
The good thing about it also on the flipside, we have a nice group of girls, probably about 20 girls for the first time in I don't know how long, came and they actually are doing some good things right now. Still young and learning but they're doing some good things to.
The Lady Firebirds ended last year as the 3rd place overall team finisher in Small Division I notching two victories in the 4x100m and 4x200m Relays and graduating only athlete in scoring position. With Signal Mountain moving up to Class AA, the Firebirds were in position to capitalize. Here's a high-level recap of how they matched up with runner-up East Nashville.
| Pearl Cohn | East Nashville | |
| Event Wins | 5 | 3 |
| Events w/ Multiple Scorers | 1 | 2 |
| Total Events Scored | 10 | 10 |
| Total Point | 88 | 79 |
Since 2017, East Nashville dominated the Small Division winning three of the last four state titles but as the concentration of talent in MNPS migrates and the classification downsized this season the opportunity for the Firebirds emerged. On paper these teams matched up pretty evenly but the main difference that separated the Pearl Cohn girls of 2022 from the Pearl Cohn girls of 2021 is they evolved from a solid core of girls that could win relays together into athletes that could go out and win events by themselves. While they still came away with two relay victories again, three separate Lady Firebirds stood atop the medal stand before the team took to it at the end of the meet.
- Jakayla Morris - Long Jump Champion
- Cha'raya Hawkins - 200m Dash Champion
- Errianna Thomas - 300m Hurdles Champion
Errianna Thomas will finish the season ranked 10th among sophomores state-wide for the 300m Hurdles.
Morris, Hawkins, and Thomas are all sophomores. This is the Lady Firebirds second team title in school history. Their first was won in 2008. I suspect the gap between titles will be much shorter this time around with the depth Coach Davis is currently rostering capable of relays like this.