PEARL – The Hattiesburg Tigers dominated the MHSAA State Track Meet Saturday. So much so, they had the 5A State Championship locked up before the final event of the day started.
Hattiesburg and Canton were the clear first and second best teams in the state, but the Tigers recorded 106 points Saturday to Canton’s 97. Olive Branch, the third-place team, only had 48. The Lady Tigers hung tough, too, by finishing in second place with 84 points, 7.5 points ahead of Long Beach’s 76.5.
“It was a great day, we had a great year and we’ve been through some ups and downs, some trials of tribulations, but in the end, it all worked out,” Hattiesburg coach Charles Green said. “The kids have worked hard this year, and they worked hard and earned this one today.”
PHOTO GALLERY: Click for photos from the MHSAA 1A/3A/5A State Track Meet
Entering the 200-meter dash late in the evening, Hattiesburg was tied for second place with 61 points. Then, Diandrenquie Gaines gave her team 10 points with a win in the event.
Gaines also won the 100-meter dash and she was a part of the Hattiesburg’s first-place winning 4x200-meter relay team. Her 4x100-meter relay team placed sixth.
“Diandrenquie had a great day,” Green said. “Without her contributions, we probably wouldn’t have finished second. The 200 gave us the extra boost and we fought to hold off Long Beach.”
However, Gaines’ win didn’t secure a runner-up finish. The Lady Tigers still had to run the 4x400-meter relay, and the Long Beach Lady Bearcats had their number in the district and south state meets. Long Beach won the two prior races, and if it beat Hattiesburg for the third straight time, Hattiesburg could have finished in third place.
Entering the event, Long Beach had 70.5 points to Hattiesburg’s 74, then the first-place finish by the Lady Tigers clinched the runner-up finish.
“We need that 4x400,” Green said. “We just needed to be behind Long Beach. The last two weeks they caught us at the end and ran us down, but the girls ran with something extra today to finish strong,”
The Hattiesburg Tigers had a pair of sprinters place 1-2 in the 110-meter hurdles Saturday. From the fourth lane, junior Keirston Paige took first place and senior Anthony Woodson finish a close second to sweep the Top 2 podium spots.
That would be a trend for the day.
“This is the first time we’ve ever done that,” Paige said. “We’ve been working on trying to sweep the whole year, so it’s been good doing it with him.”
Paige qualified with a time of 14.10 seconds and he admitted after the race he wanted to get his time to less than 14 seconds, but his 14.18 time was good enough for first place. Woodson ran a 15.44 time.
“I was expecting in the 13s, but that last hurdle knocked me out,” Paige said. “I was running angry, so I can do better. It was angry running, that’s all. I got disappointed before I came here … I was running and I was already frustrated about that and I wasn’t focusing on my form. I was just trying to run hard and get here.”
Later in the day, Paige competed in the 300-meter hurdles with his teammate, Woodson. Paige was the favorite entering the event after qualifying with a 40.29 time, and rounding the second turn, it looked like it was his race to win down the stretch.
However, he clipped a hurdle and fell to the track. He bounced up quickly and found himself in the middle of pack, but his speed in the last 100 meters easily made up the difference to win the event with a 40.75.
“I couldn’t go down like that,” he said. “I lost last year, I came in third, so I just knew I couldn’t go out like that. I had to keep pushing, keep working and get back in front of them.
“After going through that fall, I was light-headed when I got up. I was trying not to run in his lane, I had to get back over. I just knew I needed to get to the next hurdle and beat him to it. Now it feels good that I did that, even after the stumble. Now I’m just thinking about what I would have ran if I didn’t stumble.”
Woodson, again, took second behind his teammate.
“Our coach, he’s been helping us work on sweeping this whole year,” Paige said. “That’s been our goal. Double threat.”
Hattiesburg junior Gayden Hence entered Saturday with the best mark among the 5A pole-vaulting competitors, and he held the top spot when the day was done with a vault of 12 feet.
As a sophomore, Hence placed sixth overall in 2017.
“It feels great,” he said. “Just the improvement factor to get from sixth to first, it’s awesome. I had to get a lot faster, I had to go up on bigger poles and I had to quit being a little punk like what my coach says. Just suck it up and do what I could.”
Hence’s qualifying vault was 12-feet-6-inches at the south state meet, and although he had first place locked up, he was visibly upset after he scratched for the third time.
“I know I could do better, I just don’t think I was fully zoned in,” Hence said. “It’s a new pole and I have time to work on it. I’ll definitely be back next year.”
Sacred Heart’s Campbell Klein and Hattiesburg’s Zavier Allen took home first place in their respective events. Klein competed in the 1A discus throw while Allen dominated the 5A triple jump.
Klein’s throw of 128 feet, 3 inches was more than five feet better than the second place finisher, Sebastopol’s Jacquez Lee.
“It feels pretty good,” Klein said of being a state champion. “I’ve been throwing for three years now and I finally came out and won. There was really good competition this year, but I just put in the work and I finally came out and threw a couple of good ones.”
Competitors get six throws in the event, and Klein’s third throw was the winning toss. He said he remembered advice from a coach when he stepped up for the third attempt.
“It felt good coming out,” he said of his state-championship winning throw. “My coach always says, ‘Your best throw, you don’t even feel it,’ and that’s what it was like today.”
Allen didn’t need all of his jumps to take home first place. He took a lead on his first jump that no other competitor could answer. His first jump was 46 feet while the second-place winner only had a jump of 45-05.
With the win already in his pocket, Allen was going for the school record on his final attempt. He didn’t break the record, but his final jump of 46-05 was more than enough to win the event.
“I wanted to around the 47(-foot) range, but I came out early with 46-5 so it was pretty close,” Allen said. “It was my last jump and I just kept thinking that it was my last jump in high school, so I wanted to make it count. I was going for the school record.”
Allen was the first, first-place winner for Hattiesburg of the day. The team has 5A State Championship aspirations and Allen did his part to help that cause.
“I’m not knocking any other team, but I just know my team has worked hard this season to get where we are,” Allen said. “If we do what we have to do, like we’ve been doing all season, we should be all right.”
5A Boys
110-meter hurdles: 1. Keirston Paige, Hattiesburg, 14.18; 2. Anthony Woodson, Hattiesburg, 15.44.
4x200-meter relay: 1. Hattiesburg, 1:30.04.
4x100-meter relay: 5. Hattiesburg, 43.68.
400-meter dash: 3. Iven Evans, Hattiesburg, 50.35.
300-meter hurdles: 1. Keirston Paige, Hattiesburg, 40.99.
800-meter run: 4. Wayne Carter, Hattiesburg, 2:04.35
200-meter dash: 7. Iven Evans, Hattiesburg, 22.76.
4x400-meter relay: 2. Hattiesburg, 3:29.99.
Triple jump: 1. Zavier Allen, Hattiesburg, 46-05; 4. Anthony Woodson, Hattiesburg, 44-08.50.
High jump: 3. Royal Carrol, Hattiesburg, 6-00; 5. Matias Pruitt, Hattiesburg, 5-08.
Pole vault: 1. Gayden Hence, Hattiesburg, 12-00.
5A Girls
4x800-meter relay: 4. Hattiesburg, 10:50.72.
100-meter dash: 1. Diandrenique Gaines, Hattiesburg, 11.92.
4x200-meter relay: 1. Hattiesburg, 1:42.29.
4x100-meter relay: 6. Hattiesburg, 50.99.
400-meter dash: 3. McKenzie Patterson, Hattiesburg, 59.62.
800-meter run: 3. Taylor Sharfner, Hattiesburg, 2:32.95.
200-meter dash: 1. Diandrenique Gaines, Hattiesburg, 11.92; 6. McKenzie Patterson, Hattiesburg, 26.63.
4x400-meter relay: 1. Hattiesburg, 4:12.23.
Triple jump: Mykea Boykin, Hattiesburg, 37-06.
High jump: 2. MyNia Carter, Hattiesburg, 5-02.
Pole vault: 4. Kya Warnesly, Hattiesburg, 8-00.
1A Boys:
3,200-meter relay: 4. Heath Flathau, Sacred Heart, 10:49.19; 5. Jacob Gallagher, Sacred Heart, 11:03.01.
1,600-meter run: 6. Heath Flathau, Sacred Heart, 5:09.32; 7. Jacob Gallagher, Sacred Heart, 5:13.39.
400-meter dash: 5. Payton Ware, Sacred Heart, 56.14.
200-meter dash: 6. Jeremiah Smith, Sacred Heart, 24.84.
4x400-meter relay: 6. Sacred Heart, 4:04.56.
Long jump: 2. Jeremiah Smith, Sacred Heart, 20-11.
Shot put: 5. Campbell Klein, Sacred Heart, 42-03.25.
Discus: 1. Campbell Klein, Sacred Heart, 128-03.
1A Girls:
4x800-meter relay: 3. Sacred Heart, 11:28.61.
3,200-meter relay: 6. Shae Rutland, Sacred Heart, 14:31.97; 7. Elizabeth Casey, Sacred Heart, 15:01.07; 8. Emily Coffin, Sacred Heart, 15:06.07.
4x200-meter relay: 2. Sacred Heart, 1:51.68.
1,600-meter run: 1. Christina Danford, Sacred Heart, 6:08.89; 7. Shae Rutland, Sacred Heart, 6:41.76; 8. Emily Coffin, Sacred Heart, 6:50.51.
400-meter dash: 6. Kaitlin Wade, Sacred Heart, 1:10.37; 7. Lexi Saffle, Sacred Heart, 1:11.49.
800-meter run: 6. Christina Danford, Sacred Heart, 2:51.21; 8. Elizabeth Casey, Sacred Heart, 2:57.27.
200-meter dash: 4. Lauren Jones, Sacred Heart, 27.86.
4x400-meter relay: 4. Sacred Heart, 4:34.43.
High jump: Lexi Saffle, Sacred Heart, 4-02.
