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

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

Porter's Chapel Academy's Schaffer Bell competes in the long jump at the MAIS District 4-3A track meet on Tuesday. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Schaffer Bell competes in the long jump at the MAIS District 4-3A track meet on Tuesday. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Jase Jung competes in the high jump at the MAIS District 4-3A track meet on Tuesday. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Audrey Carraway competes in the long jump at the MAIS District 4-3A track meet on Tuesday. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Porter's Chapel Academy's Morris Bailey Jr. competes in the triple jump at the MAIS District 4-3A track meet on Tuesday. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Porter’s Chapel Academy went the distance to secure its second straight MAIS District 4-3A boys track and field championship.

The Eagles won all three distance races — the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 meters — and then hung on to a slim lead by winning the meet-closing 4×400 meter relay to claim the team championship at Tuesday’s meet at Vicksburg High School.

PCA totaled 86 points to edge River Oaks, which had 82.5. Hillcrest Christian was third with 55.5, followed by Prairie View Academy with 39 and Franklin Academy with five.

PCA’s boys won five events in all and had 10 athletes in 15 events advance to the Class 3A South State meet on April 26 at Canton Academy. The top four finishers in each event moved on to South State.

“A bunch have advanced,” PCA coach Daniel Slayton said. “We advanced all of our relays. A lot of distance runners, which I’m very proud of because we’ve been lacking in distance runners when we move up to South State. We collected those up, and we’ve got all our sprinters moving. We look good moving on up to South State.”

Freshman Lakelan Pecanty won the long jump with a leap of 19 feet, 1 inch, and Schaffer Bell was second in that event at 17-6.5. It was the distance runners, however, who carried the day for PCA.

Senior Tyler Hatler won the 1,600 and 3,200 meters with times of 6:10.53 and 12:01.27, respectively, and finished second to teammate Henry Slayton in the 800 meters. Blake Barnard, an eighth-grader, was second in the 1,600 and fourth in the 3,200. Together, the three runners accounted for 28 of PCA’s 82 points in those three events.

“My boys’ two-milers came through. That really pushed us up and gave us a lead with a first and a fourth-place finish,” Daniel Slayton said. “When your distance runners put up points and help you, that’s the big key. You’ve got your sprinters that you always know you’re going to have, but your distance runners are your hidden gems.”

In the 4×400 relay, Henry Slayton came through again. He ran the anchor leg behind Jase Jung, Pecanty and Schaffer Bell as the Eagles won with a time of 3:58 even. Prairie View was second in 4:00.80, and River Oaks was third in 4:08.90.

PCA entered the final relay with a half-point lead, so the winner between it and River Oaks would have taken the team title.

In addition to the individual winners, PCA got second-place finishes from Clayton McClure in the 300 meter hurdles, Jung in the high jump, Bell in the long jump, and the 4×100 and 4×200 meter relays. Daniel Slayton hopes having so many athletes getting through the first of three rounds of postseason meets is a good sign of things to come.

“That’s the big thing is keeping that depth and having one or two in every race. It helps you when you go to build the points. Qualifying them out of South State is going to be the key when you go to state,” Slayton said.

In the girls’ meet, PCA won four events and had 10 entries advance to South State while finishing second in the team standings.

Franklin Academy edged the Lady Eagles in a tight four-way battle, 56-52. River Oaks came in third place with 49 points and Prairie View was fourth with 47.

Senior Marley Bufkin was a triple winner in the 100 meters (14.19 seconds), 200 meters (29.91) and the long jump (14 feet, 9 inches). She was also on the 4×200 and 4×400 meter relays that both finished second.

Mia Abdo was on both of those relays as well, to go along with a second-place finish in the high jump (4 feet, 2 inches) and a victory in the triple jump. Abdo, a sophomore, leaped 30 feet, 5 inches to win the triple jump by nearly four feet over River Oaks’ Brooklyn Reyes.

Jayden Chapin was second in the 300 meter hurdles and third in the 100 hurdles for PCA. Audrey Carraway was on the 4×200 and 4×400 relays and finished third in the long jump with a mark of 14 feet.

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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