LaJarvia Brown has had an outstanding season for Alton's girls track team.
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Brown, a senior, added to her achievements at the Southwestern Conference Girls Track and Field Championship Wednesday at Granite City's Memorial Stadium as she set meet records in three events, including shattering the previous mark in the triple jump on her first attempt, going 39 feet, 1.5 inches to top the mark set in 2014, when Kayla Marshall of Collinsville got off a leap of 37 feet.
Brown also won the long jump with a leap of 18-1.5, topping Lauren Begnay's 2006 mark of 17-5, and finished second in the 300-meter hurdles in 43.78 seconds, behind Miyah Dorsey of Belleville East, who had a time of 43.70, but still topped the mark of Edwardsville's Kristen Dowell, who ran a 45.85 in 2014.
It added up to a fifth-place finish for the Redbirds with 71 points. O'Fallon ran away with the team title, scoring 160.5 points to second-place Belleville East, who had 108 points. Edwardsville was third with 104 points and East St. Louis edged out the Redbirds for fourth with 93.5 points. The host Warriors were sixth with 45 points, Belleville West was seventh with 42 points and Collinsville brought up the rear with 28 points.
In the separate junior varsity competition, the Panthers also took the team crown with 176 points, far ahead of the Flyers' 140 points. Edwardsville was third with 112 points, Belleville East had 70 points to nose out Belleville West for fourth; the Maroons had 69 points followed by Alton with 28 points, Granite City with 10 and Collinsville with nine.
“LaJarvia had a really good day,” said Redbird coach Terry Mitchell. “We all really had a good day overall; we did about as well as I'd hoped we would. Last year, we finished eighth and we improved to fifth the year, and that's one of the goals we had, to finish better than last year.”
Brown wasn't the only athlete that had Mitchell beaming; Katie Mans took the high jump with a height of 5-4, Jewel Wagner finished second in the shot put with a toss of 40-3.5 and Alexis James took fourth in the discus throw with a mark of 113-2.
Now the focus shifts to the upcoming IHSA Class 3A Sectional meet, set for May 15 at O'Fallon, and Mitchell's goal is simple: Send as many Redbirds as possible to the IHSA Class 3A State Track and Field Championship at O'Brien Stadium on the Eastern Illinois campus in Charleston; that meet is set for the weekend of May 21-23.
“We want to keep improving when we get to the sectional,” Mitchell said. “We want to take as many girls as we can to Charleston.”
Other Redbird varsity performers who finished in points-paying positions (the top seven spots paid points in individual events and the top six in relays paid points) included Chayvon Buckingham, seventh in the shot put at 35-2; the 4x800 relay team of Anyria Goner, Tatianna Britt, Arryon Moss and Tynisha Holloway, seventh in 11:17.35; the 4x100 relay team of Holloway, Rylee Davis, Jalisa Casey and Brown, fourth in 50.12 seconds; Kimbreon Knight, eighth in the 100 hurdles in 17.75 seconds; Rebecca Adnay, sixth In the 800 in 2:34.54; the 4x200 relay team of Mans, Taylor Carpenter, Goner and Davis, sixth in 1:51.70; Davis in the 200 in 27.30; and the 4x400 relay team of Mans, Goner, Adnay and Kimberon Knight, sixth in 4:17.29.
Alton did not have any individual winners in the JV competition.
Individual champions included Edwardsville's Gabriella Romano in the pole vault; East St. Louis' Aaliyah Herron in the discus throw and shot put; Edwardsville's 4x800 relay team of Danielle Bohannon, Bailey McGuire, Victoria Vegher and Lorie Cashdollar; the O'Fallon 4x100 relay team of Kersten Douglas, Dartrenetta Holman, Mya Watson-Blake and Nautica Lockett; O'Fallon's Sam Tidwell in the 3,200 meters; O'Fallon's Douglas in the 100; Belleville East's Miyah Dorsey in the 100 hurdles; O'Fallon's Tami Cardenas in the 800; O'Fallon's 4x200 relay team of Douglas, Lockett, Holman and Watson-Blake; Collinsville's Brea Marshall in the 400; O'Fallon's Noelle Glister in the 1,600; Belleville East's Sidne' Williamson in the 200; and O'Fallon's 4x400 relay team of Cardenas, Caitlyn Clinton, Taliah Reese and Douglas.
