Above, Mansfield’s Shawn Brown throws shot put at Alma junior high meet.
Mansfield was searching for a track meet to fill the hole in their schedule when Paris had to cancel their normal rotation in the local track circuit. Alma’s Junior Airedale Relays became the remedy the Tigers needed on March 13.
It ended up a good night for the Tiger throwers on both the men’s and women’s side. Bri Sanderson, Blake Wilkins, Zayne Dugan, Shawn Brown, Skylynn Harris, and Brooke Wright all made noise.
Sanderson lead the MJH throwers with the best measures among all Tigers. The freshman hurler sailed the 1kg discus 118’ 2” for a seventh place award among the large school competition. He also put the shot a season best 38’ 3.5” for 11th place.
“It was good to see Bri unleash,” said Mansfield track Coach John Mackey. “His position coach, Dustin Payne, has really been after those guys to produce. This sets up well for the conference.”
The Mansfield men had all three discus throwers go over 100 feet. After Sanderson’s mark, it was Dugan at 104’ and Wilkins at 102’ 6”.
Brown came through with his best toss of the season with a 34’ 6” handle of the 4kg shot put ball. Brown, just an eight grader, pushed past his freshman teammate Wilkins who landed the implement at 33’ 6”.
Seventh grader Skylynn Harris established herself as a conference contender with a 33’ 7” shot put. She had already won a seventh grade meet and now scored 5th in her first junior high event.
Fresh Brooke Wright finally found the range in the discus by tossing 78’ 4”. That was the fourth place measure among all Alma contestants. She also pushed a season best 30’ 11” in the shot put.
Harris placed in the discus ring also. She flew the implement passed the 76’ 7” mark for 6th place.
Brandon Carver doubled production in the vertical jumps by taking two 4th place awards. The first of which was a 9’ 6” pole vault. The other was a 5’ 6” high jump placement.
Sadie Roberts off the junior girl’s squad did something similar by taking 4th in the high jump at 4’ 6” and clearing 6’ 0” for 5th place in the pole vault.
The Lady Tiger’s 4x800m relay team surprised by moving into 5th place at Alma. Hope Rainwater give the team a boost when she took the lead leg around in 2 minutes and 55 seconds. Seventh grader Olivia Bouse continued momentum with a 2 minute 50 second next position.
Hope’s twin sister, Faith Rainwater, did what a twin should. She ran an identical split of 2:55 at the third spot.
McKenzie Griffin hauled home the baton giving the collective team a 11:54.83 measurement for the 5th place prize.
Another surprise came from fellow eight grader Shelby Cole. For the second consecutive week, Cole came on strong in the 300m hurdles. Her time of 56.24 was the third top score at Alma, and remains the best among Mansfield girl hurdlers.
Seventh grader Madelen Jones beat many of her older competitors to sneak in an eighth place award at the 300m barrier race. She was clocked at 59.09 in only her third career race.
Carver was a scorer on the men’s version of the 300m style hurdles. Her went 49.49 for eighth place.
Ethan Chapman was the Tiger’s top distance runner. He went 5:33 in a very competitive 1600m run for 13th place. Steven Perez was close behind at 5:54.
Brysin Cape had a good showing in the 400m dash in his first track meet. He was clocked at 1:07.42. Ryan Hayslip was back of that but finished about 12 seconds faster than his last time out with a 1:11.07.
