By JASON KING
Leader sportswriter
Cabot track teams qualified a total of 29 athletes for the 7A state meet at Fayetteville High School on Thursday.
There were 18 boys and 11 girls who qualified through the 7A-Central Conference meet at Scott Field in Little Rock over the weekend, with event victories for Brendon Tucker and T.J. Bertrand on the boys side and two for junior Ariel Voskamp on the girls side.
The boys team also won the 3,200-meter relay.
“The meet went pretty good,” Panthers coach Leon White said. “We had several who did really well and qualified for the state meet. At the state meet, there are a lot more teams involved and it doesn’t take as many points to win.
“So we have an outside chance if something strange happened and the other teams started taking points away from each other.”
Tucker won the 3,200-meter run with a time of 9:49.28, which was just over six seconds better than second place. He also took second in the 1,600-meter with a time of 4:33.65.
Bertrand won the shot put with a throw of 49-11, and was eighth in the discus.
Senior Powell Bryant had top-three performances in two events, and finished in a tie for fourth in the 100-meter run. Bryant took second in the 400-meter run with a time of 51.54 and was third in the 200-meter with 23.32.
The Panthers also gained points with strong relay performances.
Cabot took first in the 3,200-meter relay with a time of 8:17.76 and finished second to Little Rock Catholic in the 1,600-meter relay with a 3:32.00. The 400-meter relay team took third behind Bryant and North Little Rock.
Conway took the overall meet with 155 total points, while Cabot was a solid second with 137.5 points. Bryant finished third overall with 114 points, followed by Russellville and North Little Rock.
“Conway was well-balanced and had people who did well in every event, and that was the difference,” White said. “We did well except for a couple of field events.”
Voskamp led the Lady Panthers by winning the 100-meter hurdles and pole vault. Voskamp, an early favorite in the upcoming heptathlon, posted a time of 15.87 in the 100-meter hurdles and pole-vaulted 11 feet, 6 inches to win the respective events.
Teammate Julia Gairhan finished behind Voskamp in the pole vault at 10-3. Cabot’s Brittany Briswalter won the discus with a measurement of 116-3, almost 20 feet better than second place.
Emkay Myers fared well in the long distance events with third-place finishes in the 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter runs. Myers ran a 12.05.85 in the 3,200-meter and a 5:34.56 in the 1,600.
The Lady Wampus Cats took first overall with 137.5 points for a Conway sweep. Little Rock Central was second with 130 points and Bryant took third with 98.
The Lady Panthers came in fourth with 85 points, followed by North Little Rock, Russellville, Van Buren and Mount St. Mary.
Confidence was high for the Lady Panthers heading into the meet, but a pulled hamstring for leading sprinter and jumping standout Sabrina Antimo prior to the start of the event changed their outlook.
“With the girls, we thought we could win it,” White said. “She didn’t run, and we lost 40 or 50 points. The other girls competed as hard as they could and we still did pretty well.”
White does not know at this point if Antimo will be a go for Thursday and listed her status as day to day.
“If she is able to run, we might have an outside shot at winning it,” White said of the state meet. “If not, we won’t be able to go very hard.”