Speed on the Track: Westlake Relays
Girls
Noelle Parker of Whitewater will help start off the meet in the shot put as she has the best throw of the year, 46-3.5! She will be challenged by Brittany Mason and Teylar Lane of MLK and Nyla Woods of Grady. In the long jump Aubreya Smith from Spartanburg will try and upset the hometown favorite Mia Phillips as Smith as jumped 19-2 already this year for 13th best in the nation. Smith will also be very competitive in the high jump with a PR of 5-6.
In the relay section the highlight event will be the 4x100 with Westlake battling against New Manchester as the both are under 47.5 which puts them top 15 in the nation. The 100 hurdles will be interesting as less than .2 seconds separates Chinyere Njoku of Fayette County and Sydney Holmes of Chamblee. In the 100 Kevia Gonzales looks like the favorite running a 12.07 already this season, so the real race will be for 2nd as 7 girls are within .13 seconds of each other. In the 300 hurdles Ariel Terrell looks like the one to beat running a 44.09 this season. The 4x200 while not ran much, will be highly competitive with the strength of these sprint schools. Finally the 4x400 will be stacked as a top 10 nationally ranked team in Westlake, will be challenged by New Manchester and North Springs as both have also broken 4 minutes
Boys
Starting the boys off will be #3 in the state for long jump (23-1.25) Malik Franklin of Newton trying to hold off Denzel Harper of Stephenson. In the high jump Westlakes’ Joseph Woodbury is the man to beat with a 6-10 jump this year. He will be jumping against Jonathan Mays of New Manchester and Chance Baines of Cedar Grove, who both have jumps over 6-6. Jamel Smith of MLK looks strong in the shot put with his 51-0 mark. The triple jump will be the field event to watch as #1 Jeremy McDuffie, #5 Malik Franklin, and #11 Daniel Roberts will compete. All these competitors have jumped over 46 feet this year with Jeremy hitting a mark of 48-6.75 which is 8th in the nation
The 3200 will have two strong competitors with Shiloh’s Nahom Solomon (9:29) and Woodward’s Alex Murfee (9:43). The 4x100 is extremely contested, with Westlake (#1 41.35), Shiloh (#3 41.66), New Manchester (#6 41.90), Stephenson (#9 42.00), Banneker (#13 42.10), and Cedar Grove (#15 42.16) all competing. Shiloh’s 4x800 team will have a good showing with their distance boys. In the 110 hurdles Jeremy McDuffie of Shiloh (14.14) will be against a strong field of Terrence Jenkins (14.23), Daniel Roberts (14.26), Quandarius Weems (14.55), among many others. The 100 will be highly contested and extremely fast as well. At least 9 runners have broken 10.9 with the top 2 having run under 10.6. Ryan Clark of Banneker and Rashaad Pollard of Westlake will have an outstanding duel. In the 300 hurdles Terrence Jenkins (37.72) will be challenged by Jeremy McDuffie (38.30), Nathan Strother (38.31), and Cameron Glenn (38.95). The final event the 4x400 will be exciting. Banneker (3:17.18) comes in with a recent win over Westlake (3:18) to be 10th and 15th in the nation. Behind these two teams are five more teams (Cedar Grove, Newton, Stephenson, New Manchester, and Shiloh) all who have run under 3:23 this year.
