senior sprinter Tamaric Johnson pulled off his second consecutive sweep of the Class AAA State Track 200 and 400 meter dash events with victories at the 2012 Georgia Boys’ State Track Championships
at Jefferson on Saturday.
Johnson swept the 200 (21.67) and 400 (47.92) gold medals in 2011 at
Jefferson to become a two-time state champion.
He repeated the feat in 2012 with faster times in both events as he ran a
47.54 to capture the 400 and then turned in a 21.38 in the 200 to cruise
to victory in both events to become a four-time state gold medal winner
and two-time champion in both events.
Johnson was not done on the day in Jefferson as he anchored the Pirates’
4x400 relay team which set a new Class AAA state record of 3:15.28. The
time broke the old record of 3:15.32 set by Gordon, a former DeKalb County
school, in 1984.
The Pirates moved from ninth in the state in 2011 to sixth this year with
31 team points, 22.5 provided by Johnson.
Quincy Tiller paced an 18th overall finish by Towers as he won the state
gold in the Class AAA triple jump with a leap of 46-03.75. Towers had a
team total of 12 points.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Lions capped the 2012 track season with a Top
15 finished in the Class AAAAA State Championships with 18 team points to
tie with Norcross and North Gwinnett in the team standings.
Senior hurdler Jordan Moore topped off an exciting season with a state
championship in the 110 meter hurdles with a time of 13.45 which was just
.06 of second off his Georgia state best time of 13.39 set at the Region
2-AAAAA Championships. It was the first DeKalb gold in the 110 hurdles
since Southwest DeKalb’s Carl McKinzie won in 2006.
Stephenson finished just outside the Top 25 in Class AAAAA with nine
points for a tie for 26th with Lowndes County and Lassiter. The Jaguars
were led by a bronze medal in the boys’ shot put by Amos Harper as he had
a toss of 52-00.50 to capture third in the state.
The top finishers from DeKalb in Class AAAA were bronze medalists Donald
Daley of Redan and Lakeside’s Brent Reynolds in the 800 meter run.
Daley’s toss of 152.03 helped lead Redan to a Top 20 finish in a tie for
18th with 12 points along with Tri-Cities and Mays.
Reynolds took third in the 800 with a time of 1:54.61 to aid Lakeside'’s
Top 25 finish of 21st in a tie with four other teams with 11 points each.
Mark Brock is the Athletics Statistician/Information Officer/Web Manager for DeKalb County Schools Athletics/East DeKalb Campus.
