Local teams look for strong showing as state track & field meet continues

ALBANY — The Georgia high School Association girls track and field state championships got underway at Hugh Mills Stadium Thursday morning. The first day featured primarily Classes 2A, 3A and 5A heats and the Pelham Lady Hornets had a strong showing in the field events and were tied for third-place after four events.

Amelia Almond and Brittany Battle placed fourth and fifth respectively in the 2A discus. Almond’s highest throw was recorded at 109-feet, 4-inches and Battle 101-5. Laura Watts placed third in the pole vault for Pelham with a jump of 9-feet, 6-inches.

Preliminaries for Class 4A begin today starting with the field events at 9:30 a.m. Three of the Dougherty County teams that qualified to compete enter the day in different places.

For Albany’s young team that showed a lot of promise at last year’s state meet, injuries came at the worst time. Their 4X100-meter relay team, which placed third last year, will be missing two key members and coach Ralph Wilson said they’re going to do their best with what they have.

“We have those two in the 100 and the 200 that’s off that [relay] team and we’re hoping they can get in the finals,” he said. “We’d like to see them just come out here and compete and just give it their best and I think if they do that, then they’re probably gonna get in.”

For the Monroe Lady Tornadoes, injuries to key members, including Jahari Williams, made it hard to compete for a top spot in last year’s state meet. This year, head coach Billy Glanton said they are as healthy as they can be and look to continue on the success they’ve built throughout the season.

“Our girls refused to lose about midpoint this year,” he said. “They got themselves together mentally and said ‘we don’t plan to lose another meet.’ Whether it be the Westover Relays or the LC Smith Relays or whatever, they made up their minds not to lose another meet and that includes the state meet.”

The Westover Lady Patriots didn’t have enough qualifiers to compete for a title as a team, but head coach Octavia Jones said the expectations still remain the same.

“We don’t have the numbers to be in contention for a state title, but all year long we’ve been a strong field team. So that’s always been our strength and we look for that to be our strength tomorrow,” he said.

Shot put, triple jump, long jump, discus, pole vault and the high jump will be the first events and running events will start at 4 p.m.