By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Panther track team got its second win of the season on Friday, taking first place in the Lake Hamilton Invitational by a wide margin over the rest of the 20-team field. The Panthers rallied 94 points to second-place Conway’s 69. Lake Hamilton was third with 68 while Bryant and Vilonia rounded out the top five with 57.5 and 46.5 points respectively.
Beebe also had some strong performances, scoring 34 points to finish 10th.
Most of the Badgers’ points came in the sprints, which were run straight into strong winds of about 15 mph. Senior Badger Connor Patrom edged out Cabot’s Britton Alley by .1 second in the 200-meter dash, finishing with a time of 22.96. Patrom’s sophomore teammate Keishun Davidson took third to give Beebe 16 points.
Patrom also took second in the 100-meter dash run into even stronger winds, and probably would have won the event if not for the -5.0 wind factor. In heat four, Palestine-Wheatley’s Antwan Dawson ran an 11.58 against a -3.6 wind factor. Patrom ran an 11.61 in heat five against the -5.0.
Those two sprints gave Beebe 24 of its 34 team points.
Cabot’s Conley Hillegas took third in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.57 against a -3.6 wind factor.
Alley won the 400-meter dash for the Panthers with a time of 49.90.
The wind was a big factor in the 110-hurdles as well. Conway’s Kevon Holder beat Cabot’s Mark Odom for the first time this year with a time of 15.34. Odom’s 15.70 was almost a full second slower than his best time this year of 14.75, but it was run against a -4.4 wind factor. Beebe’s Trip Smith took fourth in that event.
Odom won the 300 hurdles with a time of 39.69, easily beating Holder’s second-place time of 41.51.
The Panthers took first place in the 4x400-meter relay. Rocky Burke, Austin Swackhammer, Hillegas and Alley beat their own seed time by 2.6 seconds and beat Bryant by .06 seconds to win the event. Beebe’s team of Patrom, Davidson, Logan Archer and John Paul Savage finished fourth.
Cabot’s 4x-100-meter relay team finished third in an exciting race. Benton, Maumelle and Cabot each finished within .37 seconds of each other. Alex Roberts, Brandon Whitley, Connor Daigle and Hillegas finished with a time of 43.55.
Cabot placed sixth in the 4x800 relay.
Brandon Jones won the discus throw for the third time this year, hurling it 143-06 to win by more than five feet.
Jarrod Barnes finished second in the long jump with a leap of 21-feet, 9-inches. He also finished fourth in the triple jump with a leap of 43-10.
Burke took fourth in the pole vault with a jump of 13 feet while Braxton Burton was seventh at 12-6.
“It was a pretty good meet,” said Cabot coach Leon White. “We didn’t have our high jumper Matt Stanley with us and he would have definitely scored. But Conway didn’t have their good distance runner there either so everything probably evened out. I think we’re going to have a good shot at winning conference. I don’t think we’re going to get them in much better shape between now and then. They’re in pretty good form. State’s going to be tough because those West teams are so deep.”
The Lady Panthers finished in 10th place out of 16 teams with 20 points, but wasn’t at full strength. Sophomore Casey Gore took second in the 1,600-meter race with a time of 5:27.65. She also finished fourth in the 3,200 meters. Caytee Wright scored six points with a third-place finished in the high jump at 4-10.
The Panther teams will travel to Heber Springs on Friday.
