By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Cabot Panther boys’ track team turned in an eighth-place finish at the Class 7A state track meet last Thursday at Ramay Junior High School in Fayetteville. The Panthers finished with 17 points, mostly from sprints and field events.
Senior discus thrower Brandon Jones took fourth in the discus with his best fling of the year, throwing 141-11.
Sophomore Britton Alley scored eight points for Cabot with a fourth-place finished in the 200-meter dash with a time of 22.5, and a sixth-place finish in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.33.
Pole vaulters Rocky Burke and Braxton Burton finished seventh and eighth respectively in that event. Burke cleared 13-feet while Burton got 11-feet, 6-inches. The final point came from an eight-place finish for the Cabot 4x400-meter relay team.
“The boys’ team is not that strong as whole, but we have some good you talent,” said Cabot coach Leon White.
“We’ve had so many boys drop track for various reasons, we could’ve had a pretty good team. We just have to get participation numbers back up. But Britton is just a sophomore and our pole vaulters are both coming back next year. So we’ve got some things to look forward to. I expect all those guys to improve. They all work hard,” White said.
Class 4A
After a strong second-place showing in the district meet, the Lonoke boys’ and girls’ track teams finished eighth and 15th respectively in the state meet last week in Heber Springs.
Dollarway won a close boys’ meet with 74 points to beat the host school by eight. Ashdown won an even closer girls meet with 98 points, beating Crossett by six.
The Lonoke boys finished with 23 points while the girls totaled 12.
Justin Meadows scored almost all of Lonoke’s points in the boys’ meet. He won the triple jump by bounding 46-6 1/2. He received a 2-foot, 1-inch foot penalty for wind aid, but that was still good enough to beat Highland’s Deon Stewart by 1/4 of an inch.
Meadows also took second in the long jump, losing to Mena’s Zach Jewell by four inches with a leap of 22-2. Meadows also finished eighth in the 100-meter dash, a race he won at the district meet a week earlier.
Lonoke’s Caleb Bailey took sixth in the triple jump by leaping 41-9 3/4.
In the girls’ 4A meet, Keiunna Walker finished third in the long jump with a leap of 17-1 1/2. She also took fourth in the high jump by clearing the bar at 5-feet.
Lonoke’s Janis Chapman picked up a point with an eighth-place finish in the 400-meter race.
