By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
Russellville High School was the site of this year’s 7A-Central Conference track meet last Tuesday. It was a respectable showing for both the boys and girls Cabot teams, with the girls capturing sixth overall with a total score of 61, while the boys ended up fifth overall with a 63.
Pine Bluff took the championship in the girls division, scoring 149 total points. Russellville came in a close second with 147 points, while Bryant took third with 77 points.
Conway was the winner on the boys side with a winning score of 190 points. Pine Bluff was the only school to place in the top three on both sides. The Zebras almost backed up the efforts of the girls team, finishing second with 116 points. North Little Rock took third with 100 points.
A total of 18 athletes qualified for today’s 7A state meet, also at Russellville. There were 11 boys to qualify, along with seven Lady Panthers that earned bids to the event.
Although it only resulted in an eighth-place finish overall, there was one school record broken at the meet. Jeff Hicks scored a 41-00.25 during the event, setting a new Cabot High School record.
Marissa De La Paz and Emily Carpenter turned in the strongest girls performances for Cabot. Carpenter got the only event win for the Lady Panthers, taking first-place in the 3200 meter run with a time of 12:03.94. De La Paz finished fourth in the event, but edged out her teammate in the 1600 meter run. De La Paz finished second behind Russellville’s Brittany Blackman with a time of 5:28.32, a good nine-seconds faster than Carpenter’s third-place time of 5:37.03. De La Paz also finished third in the 800 meter run with a 2:28.66.
In the 4x800 relay, the group of De La Paz, Carpenter, Brittani Bennett and Sarah Brewer took fourth-place with a total time of 10:17.34. Sophomore Tori Hendrix and Kayla Milam had success in the girls high jump event. Hendrix finished fourth with an even 5’ jump, and Milam was sixth with a 4’ 8” leap, enough to qualify for state as well. Bekah Miller finished third in the pole vault with an even nine-foot vault.
The boys side had an equal amount of success. Jacob De La Paz followed his sister’s tracks to a third-place run in the 800 meter run with a time of 2:06.56. Nathan Johnson was second in the 1600 meter run with a time of 4:35.42. Johnson was also a hundredth of a second off of capturing an event win for the Panthers in the 3200 meter run, finishing second to Bryant’s Ethan Blakley. Blakley had a winning time of 9:52.75, compared to a very close 9:52.76 for Johnson. Robert Gault finished seventh in the event for Cabot.
Jared Santiago took sixth-place in the 300 meter hurdles with a 43.80.
In the relays, the team of Michael Reitz, Chris Bayles, Hunter Hess and Trevor Carpenter finished sixth in the 4x100 meter relay with a time of 46.11. Carpenter then teamed with De La Paz, Blake Norman and William Paschal for the 4x400 meter relay, capturing sixth-place with a 3:33.41. The best relay run for the Panthers would turn out to be the 4x800 meter relay, where the team of De La Paz, Gault, Johnson and Norman took second to Bryant with a time of 8:16.44.
In field events, Nick Lawhon finished fifth in the boys high jump, but it was Tyler Spencer that had the greatest success for Cabot in field events. Spencer finished second in the shot put competition with a throw of 44 feet, 8.75 inches. His throw of 126 feet one inch in the discuss throw was good for fourth place.
