Area meet worth the wait for Lion, Lady Lion tracksters
Left photo: Alyssa Cortez
Right photo: 400-meter relay team (L to R) Chrishon Guster, Kenton Anderson, Shawn Brown and Brandon Stephens
Left photo: Miles Denson
Right photo: 800-meter relay team (Top L to R) Chrishon Guster, Brandon Stephens (Bottom L to R) Miles Denson, Brandon Stephens
Qualifiers for the District 13/14-5A Area Track and Field Championships had their patience tested during the qualifiers only meet at Owl Stadium in Joshua last week.
The meet was scheduled to begin with field events at 10:00 AM on Thursday, April 15. Lady Lion shot-putter Alyssa Cortez qualified for the meet after finishing third at the District 13-5A meet two weeks ago with her throw of 32-04.75. Cortez finished fifth in the area meet standings after a throw of 31-05.25. Her performance qualified her for the Region II Meet.
Running events were originally scheduled for 5:30 Thursday evening, but the start time was moved up due to rain that was moving into the area. The schedule change didn’t help matters as the meet was halted for a rain delay before the first running event ever began.
The head coaches met just before running was scheduled to begin at 7:00 and the decision was made to reschedule the running events for Saturday at 2:00 PM.
The Lions 400-meter relay team of Brandon Stephens, Shawn Brown, Kenton Anderson, and Chrishon Guster came into the meet with the sixth best seed time. They would go on to run one of their best times of the year and finished second behind fellow District 13 competitor, West Mesquite.
Sprinter Miles Denson would claim the area championship after running a personal best time in the 100-meter dash of 10.48 seconds.
Denson also competed on the Lions 800-meter relay team along with fellow seniors, Brandon Stephens, Chrishon Guster, and Shawn Brown. The relay ran a season-best time of 1:28.58 en route to an area title.
Denson and fellow sprinter, Shawn Brown competed in the 200-meter dash where they finished second and third after posting times of 21.71 and 22.17, respectively.
“It’s a huge accomplishment for us as a program to have every athlete that qualified for the area meet also qualify for regionals,” said Greenville Coach, Alex Contreras. “Our kids understand what our standard is and have done the work required to get where we know we want to be, which is competing at the area, regional, and state level. We’ll go back to work this week for a quick turnaround at the regional meet this weekend.”
The Class 6A-Region 1 and Class 5A-Region II Track and Field Championship Meet will be held at the University of Texas at Arlington’s Maverick Stadium on April 23-24.
District 13-5A/District 14-5A Area Track & Field Championships
Women’s Division
Final Results
Shot Put
5th – Alyssa Cortez – 31-05.25*
District 13-5A/District 14-5A Area Track & Field Championships
Men’s Division
Final Results
400-meter relay
2nd – Greenville – 43.34*
Stephens
Brown
Anderson
Guster
100-meter dash
1st – Miles Denson – 10.48*
800-meter relay
1st – Greenville – 1:28.58*
200-meter dash
2nd – Miles Denson – 21.71*
3rd – Shawn Brown – 22.19*
*Regional Qualifying Mark