By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Beebe Badgers took second place in the boys’ 5A-East Conference track meet Thursday at Bro Irwin Stadium. Forrest City won the meet with 194 points while the Badgers totaled 132. Batesville took third with 124.5 and was the only other team to finish with more than one hundred points.
The Lady Badgers scored 109, but that was only good enough for fourth place in the top-heavy girls’ meet. Batesville won with 158 points while Nettleton scored 123.5 and Blytheville totaled 112.5.
Forrest City had three of the top four spots in the 100-meter dash with John Williams winning it with a blazing 10.77. If that wasn’t enough, the Mustangs won the top four spots in the 200-meter dash with Williams again taking first place. Beebe’s Connor Patrom took seventh in the event.
Williams completed the dash-race hat trick by winning the 400-meter race with a time of 49.76. It was another case of three of the top four spots going to Mustangs, with Patrom taking second for the Badgers. All three of Williams’ times in the three races qualify for state that takes place next week in Harrison.
John Diaz won the 800-meter run for Beebe with a time of 2:09.24. He also won the 1,600-meter race with a time of 4:46.28. Allen Kirk and John Paul Savage finished fifth and sixth for the Badgers in the mile. Kirk, Savage and teammate Gus McCoy took fifth, sixth and seventh in the 3,200m race.
Beebe sophomore Tripp Smith was fourth in the 110-meter hurdles and teammate Jeffrey Love was eighth. Senior Badgers Marcus Burns and William Peterson took sixth and eighth respectively in the 300-meter hurdles.
Despite Forrest City’s dominance in the 100-meter dash, Batesville’s 4x100-meter relay team pulled off the upset of the meet by beating the Mustangs by more than a second. Beebe took fourth place. The Pioneers, in fact, won all three relays while Forrest City was second in all three. The Badgers took fifth in the 4x100 and third in the 4x800.
Beebe’s Brandon Lercher took second in the pole vault and teammate Kirkland Miller tied for fourth in the high jump.
Forrest City swept the top three spots in the long jump with Williams winning that event as well. Beebe freshman Nathan Clifton took fifth with a leap of 19-feet, 10-inches.
Patrom took fifth in the triple jump at 39-7, which was also won by Forrest City’s Williams.
The Badgers took three of the top four spots in the shot put. Seniors Race Payne and Dusty Skinner were one and two while Dusty Grier finished fourth. Payne’s toss of 51-5 met the qualifying standard for state.
Jesse Crisco also met state standards in winning the discus throw with a fling of 143-9. Payne took fifth in that event at 124 feet.
In the girls’ meet, sophomore Taylor McGraw took second place in the 200-meter dash behind Forrest City’s Nikirah McKinney and also was second in the 800-meter behind Nettleton’s Kyandra Chandler. Sophomore Tori Colbert took fifth in the 800m and senior Katie McGraw was seventh in the 400m.
Chandler also took first place for the Lady Raiders in the mile and two-mile races, while Beebe’s Brenna Johnson was third in the two-mile and fourth in the mile. Trystan Taylor also placed in the mile, taking eighth place.
Senior Madison Richey took third in the 100 and 300-meter hurdles, finishing behind Blytheville’s Jabreuna Brimlett and Batesville’s Summer Strecker in both events. Richey finished in a three-way tie for first place in the high jump and was second in the long and triple jump competitions. She lost by one-quarter of an inch in the long jump with a leap of 16-5, and by only nine inches in the triple jump, both times to Brimlett.
Kassidy Elam placed in both events as well for Beebe, taking sixth in the long jump and eighth in the triple jump. Taylor McGraw also placed in the triple jump, taking fifth place.
Beebe sophomore Tori Lovelady finished seventh in the discus and freshman Kierston Miller was eighth in the shot put. Beebe’s relay teams took second in the 800, third in the 100 and fourth in the 400.