By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
Cabot sprinter Britton Alley, who will be a junior at CHS in the upcoming school year, won three state championships at the USA Track and Field’s Arkansas Association Junior Olympics at UALR on Saturday. Alley won the 100-meter, 200-meter and 400-meter dash races in the 15-16-year-old division. Alley pulled away to big leads and maintained them with little trouble in the 100- and 200-meter dashes.
He finished the 100-meter dash in 11.43 seconds and the 200-meters in23.25. Neither time matched or beat his personal best, but the races were against a -2.4 meters per second headwind.
The 400-meter race wasn’t as easy. Alley failed to close much of the lag gap in the first turn and in the front stretch. He still trailed by almost 10 meters going into the final turn, but was step for step with the leader coming out of the turn. He then pulled away down the final stretch to win by about four meters.
In his first full season as a member of the Cabot Panthers’ varsity track team, Alley became one of the top sprinters in the state. In his first 7A Conference meet, he took second in the 100-meter dash and third in the 200. At the Class 7A state meet in Fayetteville, Alley took third in the 200-meter dash, and sixth in the 100-meters.
His performance in the 200-meters qualified him for the 2015 Meet of Champions, where he placed eighth.
Saturday’s USATF wins qualifies Alley for the USATF Region 9 championships in Tulsa, Okla., from July 9-12.
A top-five finish in Tulsa qualifies Alley for a spot in the USATF-JO Nationals in Jacksonville, Fla., in August.
