Redan, Stephenson Finish Track Season in Top Ten

Class AAAA
Redan capped off a fine 2013 track season with a Top 10 finish in the State Track and Field Championships at Jefferson’s Memorial Stadium on Saturday with 25 points to tie for eighth in the team rankings.

Marist pulled away to an easy 71-38 win over LaGrange to the state title.

The Redan team brought home a pair of bronze medals led by Chris McBride who captured the bronze in the long jump with a leap of 23’-03.25”. He also was fourth in the triple jump (44’-05.75”) to account for 11 of his team’s 25 points.

The 4x400 meter relay team of Calvin Simpson, Ian Grandison, Romello Nalepa and Deion Reid took third with a time of 3:28.52 to account for the second bronze medal for the Raiders.

Clark Jones Jr. finished fifth in the 200 meter dash to lead Lithonia to a tie for 29th in the field of 39 teams scoring points at the meet.

Class AAAAA
Stephenson led five DeKalb teams to finish in the state’s Top 25 of the Class AAAAA championships as the Jaguars edged into the Top 10 with 18 points to tie with Starr’s Miller and Northside-Warner Robins.

Southwest DeKalb 17 points (13th), Dunwoody 15 points (tie for 16th), Miller Grove 13 points (tie for 22), Lakeside 13 points (tie for 22) and Martin Luther King Jr. 11 points (tie for 25th) were the other Top 25 teams from DeKalb County. Arabia Mountain finished 34th out of 46 teams with seven points in the meet. McIntosh captured the state title with 40 points to 38 by Cedar Shoals.

Denzel Harper’s silver medal in the long jump (21’-06.50”) paced the Jaguars by scoring eight points towards the team’s total of 18 which was just two points out of seventh overall.

Southwest DeKalb’s 13th place finish was fueled by Christopher Morris as he picked up a silver medal with a second place finish in the 300 meter hurdles in a time of 38.38 while Jacques Williams added seven points to the team total with a fifth place in the 3200 meter run (9:35.49) and a sixth place finish in the 1600 meter run (4:24.75).

Dunwoody picked up the only gold medal in Class AAAAA for DeKalb as the 4x400 meter relay team of Samari Bates, Miles Jones, Connor McKnight and Matthew Rather ran a time of 3:28.83 to nip Miller Grove by just 4/100ths of a second.

The Wolverines’ relay team of Marcus Smith, Jerico Carmichael, Rahiim Aponte and Daron Mitchell took the silver to pace the team’s tie for 22nd with Lakeside.

The Vikings picked up a silver medal as Jeff Jernigan hit a height of 15’-00.00” to take second in the pole vault to account for eight of the Vikings 11 points. Jedrick Higgins finished just out of the medal standings in fourth with a time of 1:56.92 in the 800 meter run to account for the rest of Lakeside’s point total.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s Top 25 finish was keyed by its 4x100 meter relay team of Donald Clark, Demarquis Polite, Alex Sands and Kavion Williams which brought home a bronze medal in the state finals with a time of 42.93.

Class AAA
The Cedar Grove Saints pushed their way through the rainy weather on the way to a third place finish. The Saints 4x400 meter relay team of Nicholas Everett, Darius Freeman, Adrian Green and Demetrius Pinkett ran one of the best times of the day with a 3:26.85 to take the gold medal and propel Cedar Grove into its third place finish overall in the team standings.

Darius Freeman also took home a silver medal with a time of 22.61 in the 200 meter dash and Chance Baines grabbed bronze in the high jump just edging out teammate Karlis Roberts on their leaps of 6’-02.00”.

Cedar Grove finished with 43 points, just 4.33 points behind second place Chapel Hill (47.33), while St. Pius ran away early to finish with 85 points to capture the state championship trophy out of 37 teams scoring points.

Mark Brock is the Information Officer/Athletics Statistician/Web Manager for DeKalb County Schools Athletics