Lady Hornets capture conference championship
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LITTLE ROCK — At the AAAAA Central Conference track meet held at Scott Field Tuesday the Bryant Lady Hornets trailed Conway by 37 points after the first session of field events. Then Bryant went on a scoring frenzy winning seven events and amassing 130 more points in the remaining events to take the team championship. Bryant won the title with a total of 184 points with Conway finishing runner-up with 148. LR Central finished third with 137 points.
“I am so proud of this group of ladies,” declared head coach Danny Westbrook. “They are so competitive that you can never count them out. They knew we had to score a lot of points to win this thing and they came through. This was a total team effort where we had so many people step-up and score critical points.”
Seniors Kelsey Mitchell and Mary Edwards, both headed to compete at Arkansas State next year, accounted for 63 points. Mitchell scored 38 points winning both hurdle races and taking second in the long jump and triple jump. Edwards scored 25 points winning the 1600 meter run and the 800 meter run and running the anchor leg on two relays.
Mitchell won the 100 meter hurdles in 15.2 and the 300 in 48.9. In the long jump, she leapt 15’ 4″. Her triple jump covered 31’ 7″. Edwards’ time in the 1600 was 5:41. In the 800, she ran 2:22.9 which was a conference record.
Another conference record and one Bryant school record were broken by Lady Hornet athletes in the meet. The 3200 meter relay team of Jessica Sowell, Kim Bergen, Lennon Bates, and Edwards set a new conference mark at 10:02.4. Brittany Johnson broke the long standing discus school record with her first-place throw of 108’ 4″.
The Lady Hornets scored big in the 3200 meter run, sweeping the top four places. Nicole Darland led the way, winning in a time of 13.06. Sowell was second at 13:10, followed by Chelsea Mansfield (13:20) and Lennon Bates (13:26).
In the 1600, they were almost just as strong. Behind Edwards, Sowell placed second in 5:49 with Bates fourth in 5:51 and M’Kenna Moore fifth in 6:02.
In the 800, Edwards was followed by Kim Bergen, who finished second in 2:31.1. Sam Wirzfeld was fourth in 2:35.4 and Paula Barrentos was seventh in 2:39.2.
Bryant picked up second-place points in the 1600 meter relay with Sara Coker, Mitchell, Sam Montgomery and Edwards teaming up on a time of 4:17.2.
Third-place points were contributed by Allison Lowery in the high jump (4’ 10″), Tracy Neal in the pole vault (7’ 0″), Johnson in the shot (33’ 4″) and Tiffany Ward in the 300 meter hurdles (50.6).
Montgomery finished fourth in the 400 meter run with a time of 62.8 and Ward was fourth in the 100 meter hurdles, finishing in 17.9. The 400 meter relay team of Taylor Henley, Ward, Sarah Davis and Barrentos turned in a 56.5 to place fifth and Lowery added an eighth-place finish in the triple jump, covering 29’ 4″.
The Class AAAAA State meet was set for Wednesday, May 17, at Cabot.
