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EDWARDSVILLE – A young girls’ track team at Alton High School did extremely well at the Southwestern Illinois Relays meet Friday at the Winston Brown Track and Field Center in Edwardsville, finishing third with 98.5 points.
“Everybody performed great,” said Redbird coach Jada Moore. “It was good seeing those babies get out here, and when I say babies, I mean my young kids get out here and perform under so much pressure, with this being a varsity track meet. I’m excited. They did way better than I thought they were going to do. Just after coming off Tuesday (in an informal meet at Edwardsville), I was kind of nervous, but seeing them get out there and compete in a matter, the environment, was wonderful.”
Moore thought the sprint medley relay team of Rashia Johnson, Jeanea Epps, Renee Raglin and Jessica Markel stood out on the day.
“They did a wonderful performance by winning that,” Moore said. My four-by-ones did wonderful as well. Everybody was competing. Just to see my freshmen get out here and compete. Also, Laila McNeal won the long jump, Lauren (Weiner) won the pole vault, so a lot of good things today. Just to see them compete at all costs, because I know Laila went down additionally on the long jump with her ankle, and bounced right back and did the winning jump.”
McNeal was also on the 4x100-meter relay team, and to play hurt was a good sign for the Redbirds.
“To see her bounce back, and fight through that adversity, it was a wonderful thing to see,” Moore said.
The outlook is very positive for Alton, and Moore is looking ahead to working with her coaching staff and her team to achieve good results.
“I hope so,” Moore said. “With my coaches working with us, working together, and everybody, we’re all over the place. Us working together, and trying to get them where we need them to be, I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll have a good year this year,” she said with a laugh.
The 400-meter shuttle hurdles team of Savannah McMurray, Sierra Stahlschmidt, Taylor Arnold and Janiyah Alexander finished fifth with a time of 1:16.53, with the sprint medley team winning with a time of 1:52.19. Epps finished second in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.49 seconds, while Raglin was sixth at 12.92 seconds. The 4x100-meter relay team of Johnson, Raglin, Epps and McNeal was third at 49.86 seconds, Stahlschmidt finished second in the 300-meter hurdles, coming in at 50.74 seconds, while McMurray wound up sixth at 52.67 seconds, and the 4x200-meter relay team of Johnson, Raglin, Arnold and Epps placed second at 1:47.08.
In the field events, Stahlschmidt was sixth in the high jump, going 4’ 8”, Weiner took the pole vault with a leap of 8’ 6”, winning a tiebreak with Elizabeth Byington of Mascoutah, McNeal won the long jump at 16’ 11”, with Arnold coming in fourth at 16’ 1.25”, Koran Mason-El and McMurray were fifth and sixth in the triple jump with distances of 31’ 6” and 31’ 3” respectively, Bria Thurman was second in the shot put with a toss of 35’ 2.5”, and Lay’Lhany Davis was fourth in the discus, throwing 95’ 10”.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
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