PCA sweeps MAIS District 4-3A track championships

Published 7:45 pm Friday, April 19, 2024

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Porter's Chapel Academy's girls and boys track and field teams pose for a photo with their MAIS District 4-3A championship trophies. Both won the team titles at Friday's district meet at Vicksburg High School. (Submitted to The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Jae'la Smith competes in the girls' high jump at the MAIS District 4-3A track and field meet on Friday. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Lakelan Pecanty competes in the boys' long jump at the MAIS District 4-3A track and field meet on Friday. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Marley Bufkin, left, and Ansley Conway, right, show off their ribbons after finishing first and second in the girls' long jump at the MAIS District 4-3A meet on Friday. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Mia Abdo competes in the girls' high jump at the MAIS District 4-3A track and field meet on Friday. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Taylor Labarre competes in the boys' long jump at the MAIS District 4-3A track and field meet on Friday. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Porter’s Chapel Academy’s track and field teams kept piling up first-place finishes until its stack reached all the way to the top of the podium.

PCA’s boys’ team won eight of 17 events, and the girls won nine as both claimed team championships at the MAIS District 4-3A meet on Friday.

The Eagles finished with 86 points to win the boys’ title, just edging out River Oaks which had 83 points. The Lady Eagles won the girls’ championship with 72 points and Prairie View Academy was second with 63.

Henry Slayton was a triple winner for PCA’s boys’ team. He won two individual events — the 800 meters in 2 minutes, 24.87 seconds and the 300 meter hurdles in 48.25 seconds — and then teamed with Taylor Labarre, Jase Jung and Lakelan Pecanty to win the 4×400 meter relay.

PCA beat River Oaks by 4 1/2 seconds in the 4×400, the last event of the meet, to clinch the team title. The Eagles had a time of 4:05.28.

Pecanty also joined Joey Courville, Tyler Hatler and Nick Neihaus on the winning 4×800 meter relay, and had a third-place individual finish in the long jump.

Neihaus won the 1,600 meters with a time of 6:14.43, and Hatler got first place in the other distance event, the 3,200 meters, in 13:13.68. Hatler also finished second to Slayton in the 800 meters.

Labarre and Jung had a 1-2 finish in the 400 meters. Labarre won in 59.65 seconds and Jung was right behind in 59.91. Jung got his own district championship in the high jump, with a height of 5 feet, 8 inches.

Conley Johnston added two second-place finishes in field events, in the discus and shot put, to advance to next week’s Class 3A South State meet in both.

The top four finishers in each event advanced to South State, which will be held at Canton Academy. Field events and the 3.200 meter run are on April 24 and the rest of the running events on April 27.

In the girls’ meet, Marley Bufkin won six events and Jae’la Smith five to lead the Lady Eagles’ charge to the team championship.

Bufkin and Smith, as well as Mia Abdo, were on three winning relays — the 4×100, 4×200 and 4×400 — along with a few individual events.

Bufkin won the long jump with a leap of 14 feet, 8 inches; the 100 meters with a time of 13.79 seconds; and the 200 meters in 28.57 seconds.

Smith won the high jump with a height of 5 feet even, and the 300 meter hurdles in 55.61 seconds.

Abdo had an outstanding day as well. The freshman won the triple jump with a mark of 30-9, was on all three winning relays, and cleared 4-6 to finish second to Smith in the high jump.

Audrey Carraway joined Abdo, Smith and Bufkin on the winning 4×100 and 4×400 relays. Eighth-grader Ansley Conway was the fourth woman on the 4×200 team.

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post's sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post's sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper's 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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