State Champs!!! (Part 1)

Call it the Hornets’ Nest.

It was just a house, sitting near a golf course in Helen, not too far from the GHSA state track & field meet, kind of tucked away in the woods.

That’s where the kids from Pelham spent three magical, unforgettable days this week. They were close before, but something happened. Maybe it was the house, maybe it was the time together — or maybe it was just their time.

But there they were Saturday afternoon, dancing and hugging each other, and shouting to the heavens. They didn’t just win the Class A boys state track & field team title, they owned it from the minute the meet began Thursday, and carried it like a torch — while carrying each other — for three days.

“It’s just awesome,” second-year Pelham coach Ben Willis said. “It’s an awesome feeling I have for these kids right now. There hasn’t been a lot of winning at Pelham, so this means even more. I can’t say enough about this team. They did everything they had to do.”

And more.

Well, make that Lester Moore, who led Pelham to their first title since 2005.

If there’s a snapshot from this meet for Pelham, it’s Moore’s courageous finish in the 200-meter dash. As he crossed the finish line, the whole Pelham team was waiting in the stands, cheering him on so loudly you could hear them all over the stadium.

Moore heard them, too.

It was that kind of meet for Pelham, which won the title with 68 points, holding off Eagles Landing (56) and Athens Christian (55). The Hornets won it wire-to-wire.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Domonique Brown, who won the long jump and the triple jump to score 20 points by himself Thursday. “It just feels so great right now. Words can’t explain it.”

Words can’t explain Moore’s finish in the 200, either. He showed up at the meet listed 12th in the race, so just getting to the finials (the final eight) was monumental. But Moore qualified Thursday, then ran the race of his life to finish second Saturday, locking up the title for Pelham.

“I was running for the team,” said Moore, who also anchored Pelham’s third-place 4×100 relay team. “We talked about how important it was to run for each other and to get every point we could get — to not give up and give it everything. That’s what I did. I gave it everything, and I could hear them screaming at the end. They sounded great.”

It was all about hanging together (maybe it was that Hornets’ Nest) and bringing each other home for Pelham, which took over the meet for the opening event. The Hornets went diving into the sand in the jumping pits and pulled up 28 points out of the pits Thursday afternoon.

That’s because Brown (22-9) and Kenneth Randall (22-6 ) went 1-2 in the long jump, and then Brown won the triple jump (45-8). Only six Class A teams scored more than 28 points during the meet.

“Those two really inspired the rest of the team,” Willis said. “They went 1-2 and that just set the tone for us.”

Pelham piled it on that first day in the field. Desmond Smith was second in the shot put and fourth in the discus, and Michael Cochran finished sixth in the discus. Reuben Martinez even scored in the pole vault with an eighth-place finish. At the end of Day 1, Pelham had 48 points.

Willis spent the rest of the meet on the computer looking at the competition. He knew only Eagles Landing and Athens Christian had a chance to catch his Hornets. He spent all day Saturday scribbling finishes and points on a sheet of notebook paper that looked like the work of a mad scientist. He crunched more numbers than NASA, until finally Moore’s second-place finish in the 200 clinched the title.

“I had to get another pen,” Willis said. “The first one ran out of ink. The kids were kidding me, saying ‘Hey coach, you get a slide rule yet?’ “

Meanwhile, back at the Nest, the Hornets were talking every night about hanging onto the lead and winning it all.

“We really pushed each other,” Brown said. “It really helped a lot staying there. We got to be even closer, and we got onto each other about getting to bed and getting rest.”

Willis said that was the best part, because there were signs near the house warning of bears.

“They were so scared of going outside and running into a bear we had no trouble with curfews or getting them to bed,” Willis laughed. “It was cheaper than renting hotel rooms, and we had the kids together every night. It turned out to be a great idea.”

And an even greater meet.

Moore’s anchor leg in the 4×100 (made up of D.T. Almond, Alexander Atkins, Randall and Moore) started Saturday off with a little more inspiration because he caught and passed the Eagles Landing runner down the stretch. It added to the lead and gave Pelham momentum.

Atkins followed up with a big performance in the 100, finishing third to lift Pelham to 60 points. Things were almost out of reach, then came Moore’s stunner in the 200.

“Lester was the hero (Saturday),” Willis said. “He was the surprise. What a great job on the anchor leg. He knew he had to get the kid from Eagles Landing, and he did it.”

So did Pelham — wire to wire with arms locked together.

“We pushed each other, and ran for each other,” Moore said. “That was the best part, winning it together.”