Knoxville Sets The Bar Early
Prior to this weekend, only one girl had runner under eleven minutes for the 3200 and that was Maddie Archdale of Hardin Valley who came into Easter Weekend with a 10:59. In an exhibition event at the Tennessee Invite, she lowered her state lead to a new PR in the distance of 10:39 pulling two more Tennesseans, Savannah Rivera and Lauren Rutlin under the 11 minute mark as well. Rivera would finish in 10:55 with Rutlin finishing in 10:58. After Friday, these would occupy the top three marks with Jordan Rayl ranking 5th at 11:09 who was also in the field.
Tennessee Girls 3200m Rankings
The next day at The Farragut Secret Safe Place Invitational, a trio of Admirals led by Trevor Coggin would take over the top 3 spots on the boys side as well as the future Volunteer won the event at his home track narrowly edging out teammate Matteo Tonnos 9:15.05 to 9:15.36 with Braden Ebbert not far behind at 9:16.48.
These times would temporarily occupy the top marks in the state until late Saturday when Abby Faith Cheeseman and Luke Thompson took to the track at the Arcadia Invitational in California.
Cheeseman And Thompson Clear It Late
Cheeseman, who set the Tennessee Indoor Record at the two mile distance earlier this year, would finish 12th in the Elite Invitational division running 10:06.63. Assuming there was a TSSAA registered official at the event, this would be a new state record for the distance that was set last year at 10:21 by Claire Stegall. Though there are two faster times in our database for the distance, 9:49 by Jenna Hutchins and 9:59 by Rebecca Story, neither were run during track season.
A few heats later, Brentwood Academy teammates Luke Thompson and Carter Johnson would take to the track with Thompson running a #11 All-Time mark of 8:56.11. It's nine second improvement over his last effort at this distance immediately after cross country season. Johnson would finish in 9:26 which currently ranks 8th overall.
Tennessee Boys 3200m Rankings
With Eastern Relays in a couple of week and other PR type meets on the calendar I expect more will make focused efforts at this distance but this was an eventful weekend for the abbreviated slate of meets due to Easter.