By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Cabot Panthers boys’ track team won the Walmart Invitational meet Tuesday at Panther Stadium. The Panthers scored 95 points to edge out Conway’s 90.5 for first place.
The Panthers won five events and finished second in several others to earn the victory in the 23-team field. The Beebe Badgers finished ninth with 22 points.
The Lady Panthers took seventh place out of 23 teams in the girls’ competition while the Lady Badgers also finished in ninth place.
In the boys’ competition, Cabot placed three in the top eight in the 400-meter race. Britton Alley won the race with a time of 50.97 while teammates Conley Hillegas and Austin Schwackhammer placed fourth and eighth respectively.
Panther hurdler Mark Odom avenged losses to Parkview’s Amari James at the Bryant meet by winning the 110- and 300-meter hurdles on Tuesday. Odom beat James by .07 seconds with a time of 14.86 in the 110. Beebe’s Connor Patrom took seventh in that race. In the 300 hurdles, Odom was the only participant to break 40 seconds, finishing in 39.69 to beat James’ 40.38. Beebe’s Trip Smith took sixth with a 42.73.
Senior Brandon Jones threw the discus a personal best 143-04 to win that event, and Rocky Burke cleared 12-feet to win the pole vault.
The Panthers finished second in two relays and third in another. Cabot’s 4x400 team was barely edged out by Bryant, losing the mile relay by .67 seconds with a time of 3:30.88 Burke, Schwackhammer, Alley and Hillegas made up the team.
Hillegas also ran anchor leg on the 4x100 team that took second by .11 seconds to Jonesboro. Alex Roberts, Brandon Whitley and Connor Daigle joined Hillegas to run a 43.55. Beebe’s team of Jo’Vaughn Wyrick, Patrom, Smith and Keishun Davis finished seventh.
Cabot’s 4x800 team of Greyson Kaufman, Jack Moore, Wells Guyor and Gardner Howze took third while Beebe’s team of Logan Brown, John Paul Savage, Gus McCoy and Logan Archer finished fifth.
Cabot junior Matt Stanley took second in the high jump, clearing 6-2 to finish two inches under Greg Mitchell of Little Rock Central.
Howze finished second in the 800, just .59 seconds behind Bryant’s Charlie Terry. Savage finished fifth for Beebe.
Alley also took fifth in the 200-meter dash and seventh in the 100m for Cabot.
McCoy took fifth for the Badgers in the 1,600 while Howze finished seventh in that event. McCoy’s best finished was fourth place in the 3,200 while Cabot’s Blake Scott finished seventh.
Patrom finished sixth in the triple jump for the Badgers.
In girls’ competition, Cabot’s 4x800 relay team of Samantha Nickell, Hadley Dickinson, Tristyn Edgar and Casey Gore placed second, but it was a distant second – more than 33 seconds behind Conway.
Nickell later won the 1,600-meter race with a time of 5:45.31, while her teammate Brayden Giesler finished sixth and Beebe’s Natalie Childress was seventh. Giesler was also sixth in the 800 while Childress scored one point with an eighth place finish.
In the 3,200-meter race, Nickell finished fourth while teammates Erin Bowie and Ashley Gore finished sixth and seventh, and Beebe’s Allie Lane was eighth.
Cabot’s 4x100 relay team of Dickinson, Case Gore, Edgar and Anna Sullivan finished sixth. Sullivan also placed seventh in the shot put with a toss of 31-09. Caytee Wright placed fifth in the high jump for Cabot.
Also scoring for the Lady Badgers, Tori Lovelady finished fifth in the discus with a throw of 88-08. Annmarie Covington took fifth in the 400-meter dash. Taylor McGraw took eighth in the triple jump for the Lady Badgers. Jacksonville’s Amber Lockhart finished sixth in the 100-meter hurdles to score three points for the Lady Red Devils.
