Hinds AHS takes second at track meet

Published 12:00 am Monday, May 11, 2009

PEARL — Hinds AHS appeared to be in good shape to take the Class 2A boys track and field title after winning 13 of 17 events last week at South State.

But it was one event where the War Dawgs got disqualified that came back to bite them Saturday afternoon at Pearl High School.

Hinds had no team in the 4×100 relay at the state meet because they were disqualified at South State when the anchor leg fell down and could not finish the race. On Saturday, despite winning the day’s final event in the 4×400 relay, the War Dawgs were still five points behind team champ J.Z. George of Carrollton 123-118.

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Hinds coach Michael Fields, however, was happy with how the War Dawgs responded. They won four events and medaled in eight others.

“The kids really over-achieved today,” Fields said. “And the best thing is the whole team is coming back next year. We won the shot, the 3,200, the 300 hurdles and the mile relay. J.Z. George, though, doubled me up in some events late in the meet. When they went 1-3 in the 800 run, that put us away.”

Then again, having a 4×100 team could’ve made a difference.

“Yeah, definitely. And the thing is, we were leading that race by 10 yards and my anchor leg tripped and fell. That’s what got us today. J.Z. got eight points in the race and we got zilch and here we’re down just seven going to the last event,” Fields said.

Jeremy Lee, who had a long day running three individual sprints and the last relay, would’ve loved to have one more.

“Our last guy tripped on some guy’s foot. I would’ve had five events. But four was pretty tough,” said Lee, who finished third in the 100, 200 and 400 meter dashes. He did win gold in the final relay to cap his season.

Darius Newton, the Vicksburg Post’s Area Player of the Year in football, had the War Dawgs’ best meet. He won the 300 hurdles in an impressive time of 39.80 to beat J.Z. George’s Kadeen Morris by six meters. Newton was second in the 110 hurdles in 15.47 seconds and he was the anchor on the winning 4×400 team.

Justin Davis got the War Dawgs started with a win in the 3,200 meters in 10:21.08 and then was second in the 1,600 meter run and fourth in the 800 meters. Patrick James got a silver in the 800 meter run and ran the third leg of the 4×400 relay.

Jimmy White won the shot put with a heave of 48 feet, nine inches and came in second in the discus with a toss of 131 feet.

Warren Central’s Condrea Collins had a disappointing finish in the girls 5A 3,200 meter run. Collins placed fifth but her time was 19 seconds worse than at last week’s North State meet. She finished in 12:34. Jessica Gates finished fifth in the 5A girls pole vault for the Lady Vikes. Audrianna Ratliff had to pull up after 200 meters and finished in eighth place in the 400 meters.