File photo by Jimmy Jones
CONWAY — In a final warm-up for the 6A-Central Conference track meet set for Conway on Thursday, April 29, the teams of the league had to endure surprisingly rugged conditions on Tuesday at the Wampus Cat Relays. Few, if any, performed their best as Conway did enough to win the team title with 159 points. The Bryant Hornets were second with 134 with Cabot third with 105 points.
North Little Rock (83.5), Little Rock Catholic (75), Little Rock Central (66) and Fort Smith Northside (58.5) also completed as has been the case in almost all of the regular-season meets in 2021.
“We had an up and down kind of day,” said Hornets head coach Steve Oury. “It was brutally cold and windy and I think some of our athletes let that get in their head a little bit.
“We got disqualified in the 4 x 100 relay for being out of the exchange zone, so that was a missed 10 points,” he noted.
Still, the Hornets won the 4 x 400 relay and the 4 x 800. The only individual first came from LaQuav Brumfield in the triple jump. He covered 41’1.75” to beat out Northside’s Marvin Chindasack (39’10.25”).
“Conway has a great group of senior distance runners and they really rack up points in those events, so we have to do a better job at making up that deficit in other events,” Oury observed, looking ahead. “At the conference meet, it looks like it will be a tossup between us, Conway, and Cabot. We just have to do our part and execute to the best of our abilities in all 18 events.”
Chances are conditions will be better that day.
The Hornets’ winning quartet in the 4 x 800 was Hagan Austin, Sam Herring, M.J. Ferguson and Ammon Henderson. They clocked in at 8:30.86 to edge Cabot (8:34.80).
In the 4 x 400, Owen Lee, Brumfield, Henderson and River Gregory teamed up on a 3:37.54 clocking. North Little Rock was second at 3:45.42.
Bryant had second-place finishes in six events including Brumfield’s high jump of 5’10”, behind Catholic’s Noah Wright at 6’0”, and in the 400 in which he ran a 53.60 to finish behind only Woyn Chatman of Little Rock Central at 50.10. Gregory was eighth in 56.91.
Chatman also beat out Kyle Knox in the 200. Chatman’s winning time was 22.55 with Knox on his heels at 23.14. Lee was fourth in 24.05.
Kaleb Knox turned in a second-place finish in the 300 hurdles. His time of 42.08 was just off the pace set by Ricky Robertson of Conway at 41.06.
In the pole vault, Bryant’s Josh Mellor cleared 11’0” and Caden Hope got over at 10’0”. Conway’s Jacob Beal won with a vault of 11’6”.
Bryant was also second in the 4 x 200 as Shamarion Gilmore, Daizure Hale, Brian Hare and Remulus Herrien turned in a 1:35.19, finishing right with Conway (1:34.98).
Tyler Curry picked up third-place points for Bryant in the discus. His throw went 106’. Rodricho Martin was eighth at 91’4”.
Martin’s shot put of 39’6” was good for fifth with Jimyle Harris seventh at 37’5.5”.
Bresner Austin was fourth in the 1600 and fifth in the 3200 for Bryant. In the former, he ran a 4:37.66. In the latter, his time was 10:31.43. Mason Lewis was eighth for the Hornets in 10:46.78.
Henderson and Herring each scored in the 800. Henderson was fourth in 2:08.01. Herring was fifth in 2:08.37.
In the hurdles, Blake Snyder was fifth in the 110 with a time of 18.52. In the 300, Kaleb Knox’ 11.26 was good for fifth with Allen eighth in 11.82.Allen and Knox also scored in the long jump. Allen’s leap of 18’1” garnered a seventh-place finish. Knox’ 17.8.5” was eighth.
