By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Beebe boys won a tight meet, and the Sylvan Hills girls ran away from the field as both repeated as conference champions at the 5A-Central meet Tuesday at Beebe’s Bro Irwin Stadium.
It is the third-straight conference title for the Beebe boys, who have also not finished any worse than second for the last eight years. It’s also the Sylvan Hills girls’ third-straight league title.
In the boys’ meet, the Badgers wrapped up the championship in the next-to-last event. Beebe led by nine points going into the finals of the 3,200-meter race. While Little Rock Christian Academy’s Josh Franco won the event by half the track with a time of 10:55.47, Beebe’s Gus McCoy, Sean Langley, Dylan Owens and Colin Brock all placed and combined for 18 points.
Beebe finished with 149 points with Parkview coming in second with 133. Sylvan Hills scored 125 for third and McClellan had 119.50 for fourth place. LRCA scored 91, J.A. Fair 21.5 and Mills 10 to round out the event.
That put the margin out of reach with only one event, the 4x400-meter relay, remaining.
“We started out bad,” said Beebe coach Mark Pinkerton. “We didn’t do what we thought we would in the shot put, but then we had some guys step up in the discus, and we went second, third fourth and seventh. That’s 21 points when I was counting on about 13 maximum. We had a pretty good day from there.”
Tyler Long, Garrett Grier, Hunter Newman and Maverick Payne were the Badgers to place in the discus. Payne also took third in the shot put, but no other Badger placed in that event.
K.J. O’Neal scored four points in the high jump. The pole vault wasn’t a strong field with only five competitors, but Beebe took the top four spots for 29 points.
Nathan Clifton got Beebe twopoints in the long jump. Logan Archer scored 13 points in the hurdles, finishing second in the 300 meter and fourth in the 110 meter.
McCoy also took second in the 1,600-meter race behind Franco, finishing just 1.43 seconds behind the Warrior with a time of 4:52.70. Langley, Mike Russell and Owens took fourth, fifth and seventh, respectively.
Beebe took fourth in 4x100-meter relay and fifth in the 4x400. O’Neal finished seventh in the 400-meter dash.
Sylvan Hills scored many of its points in the hurdles, which were both won by Anthony Duncan. He left the field behind in the 110-meter high hurdles with a time of 15.09. Second place Lee Rudley of McClellan finished a second and a half behind, and Sylvan Hills’ Darius Wadell was third, giving the Bears 16 points from the event.
The 300 hurdles was a closer event. Archer jumped out to an early lead, but Duncan’s speed kicked in down the stretch and won the event by .13 seconds with a time of 41.80. Wadell was fifth for four points.
Malik Bean and Ty Compton finished third and fourth in the 100-meter dash for 11 points. The duo finished second and fourth in the 200-meter dash.
The Bears finished second in both relays. Waddel, Calvin Jefferson and Aaron Hunter went fourth, fifth and sixth in the 400-meter dash for 12 points.
Daylon Raynor scored five points total by taking fifth in the 3,200-meter race and eighth in the 1,600.
The Lady Bears finished with 272 points, beating second place Parkview by almost as many points as Parkview scored, which was 138. LRCA was a distant third with 79 points. Beebe was right behind that with 78.50. Mills finished with 42 and Fair had 12.5.
Sophomore Mia Heard was the team’s high point getter. She won the long jump and 100-meter dash, and was second in the 200-meter dash and triple jump.
The Lady Bears won eight total events and swept the top three spots in half of those. Makaila Murphy, Daviunia Jones and Dasia Harris went one, two and three in the high jump.
Heard, Aliya Hatton and Ayana Harris did the same in the 100-meter dash. O’Shayla Muldrow, Jones and Jordan Sanders did it in the 400-meter dash. Muldrow, Heard, Ayana Harris and Alexis Lee swept the top four spots in the 200-meter dash.
The Lady Bears also won the 4x100-meter relay in a close race with Parkview. They ran away in the 4x400 relay, winning by more than 15 seconds.
Dallyn Stubbs won the 800-meter race by seven seconds over Beebe’s Allie Lane. Allysia Marbley took third in that event.
The Lady Bears and Lady Badgers were the only two teams to enter athletes in the pole vault. Sylvan Hills finished first, second, fifth and sixth. Beebe filled in the gaps.
