By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The hosting Lake Hamilton boys and Crossett girls won team titles in the Arkansas track and field Meet of Champions on Saturday in Pearcy, but several local athletes performed well. The North Little Rock boys took seventh place overall while the Cabot girls were 11th.
There were two first-place finishes by local athletes in the girls meet. Cabot sophomore Lexi Weeks cleared 13 feet in the pole vault, beating out sister and teammate Tori Weeks by four inches.
The next closest competitor was Russellville’s Taylor Hathcoate, who was a full 16 inches below Tori Weeks’ second-place height.
North Little Rock sophomore Malica Monk won the triple jump, outdistancing Bryant’s Alexis Royal by two-and-a-half inches with a personal best of 37-9.
In one of the most exciting events of the meet of champs, the North Little Rock girls 4x100 relay team, a squad consisting of three sophomores and a junior, finished third behind Bentonville and Crossett in a race that saw the top four teams finish within .83 seconds of each other.
Bentonville won it with a time of 47.09 while Crossett came in at 47.26. North Little Rock’s team of Brandi Hughes, Lagradia Nelson, Makayla Daniel and Monk finished in 47.87 while Camden Fairview crossed the finish line at 47.92.
Bentonville’s time was only .09 off the 29-year-old state record set by Pine Bluff in 1984.
Beebe’s Jamie Jackson took second place in the girls 300-meter low hurdles with a time of 46.78, though she was almost three seconds off the pace of Springdale Har-Ber’s Payton Stumbaugh’s 43.37, which broke a 25-year-old state record by .53 seconds.
In the boys meet, Charging Wildcat junior Kavin Alexander won the 200-meter dash with a time of 21.76, and took second in the 100-meter dash with a 10.79 time, just .01 behind winner Curtis Rogers of England.
North Little Rock’s Marcus Lindsey took third in the discus with a fling of 154-3, and Martinez Butler was fourth in the triple jump, bounding 44-4 1/4 inches.
Other state records to fall included the girls 1600-meters. Rogers’ Maggie Montoya finished in 4:57.57, beating the state record set by Elkins’ Grace Heymsfield in 2010 by .41 seconds.
Montoya also won the 3200, but was nowhere near the state record of 10:40.35 set by Cabot’s Emily Myer last year. Montoya won this year’s 3200 with a time of 11:05.24.
The Fayetteville girls 4x800 relay team eclipsed the state mark of 9:37.69 set by Fort Smith Southside in 2007, finishing in 9:37.20 and 25 seconds ahead of second place.
