McCallie's track and field team recently won the region championship to complete an undefeated season.
photo by Contributed
The McCallie Track & Field Team continued an undefeated season by winning the DIIAA East Region Championship hosted by GPS on a beautiful May evening. McCallie scored an astounding 148 points with Baylor and Chattanooga Christian trailing with 48 and 47 points.
McCallie’s Field Event athletes got off to a great start with Aaron Crowder winning the discus and Evan Smith also qualifying for state. Smith won the shot and will advance to state in that event as well. Nic Robinson won the Long Jump and qualified in the Triple Jump. Eric Rivers won the Triple Jump and qualified in the Long Jump. River’s leap of 44’2” is the leading performance in DII. Rivers also won the High Jump. Jack Braman and teammate Michael May finished 1, 2 in the Pole Vault and both qualified for the state. Braman’s best vault this season is 14’5”.
On the track McCallie’s momentum continued with the 4 x 800 relay team of Patrick Kushman, Gus Farmer, Harry Carter and Jack Sullivan advancing to the state with a season best time of 8:24.34. In the sprint relays McCallie finished 1st in both the 4 x 100 and 4 x 200 relays. Eric Rivers, John Kohl McAdams, B.J.
Harris and Jackson Burns clocked a 42.90 in the 4 x 100. Martels Carter, Adam Polen, McAdams and T.J. Usher cruised to victory in the 4 x 200. McCallie qualified for state in the final relay of the night, the 4 x 400. That relay featured Nnamdi Okolo, Vito Knoop, Jackson Burns and Patrick Kushman.
McCallie’s sprinters were extremely impressive with Team Captain Jackson Burns qualifying for state with a time of 10.97 in the 100 meters and an excellent 22.07 victory in the 200. Freshman Kavan Reynolds won the 400 in 50.11 and qualified in the 200 with a time of 22.64.
McCallie’s hurdle duo of Nic Robinson and Michael May finished 1, 2 in both the 110HH and 300IH. Robinson ran 14.88 for the 110 hurdles and May despite slipping at the start recovered to finish 2nd and qualify for state. Both athletes ran sub 40 secs for the 300 Intermediate Hurdles to advance to the state championships. 8th grader Jack Bowen and Freshman Evan Simpson advanced on time to the state meet by running 9:36.30 and 9:43.25 for 3200 meters.
May, Robinson and Rivers will represent McCallie in the State Championship Decathlon next Thursday and Friday at Brentwood Academy. In 2018 McCallie Decathlete Hakim McMorris was a state champion and the top ranked high school decathlete in America. McMorris now competes for UC-Berkeley. Prior to McMorris McCallie grad Michael Bingham set the state record in the decathlon. Bingham went on to be an NCAA Champion in the 400 for Wake Forest and win a Bronze Medal at the Beijing Olympics.
The region meet is the state qualifying meet and McCallie will advance all 4 relays and compete in 20 individual spots. McCallie has won 15 consecutive Region Championships. The State Trackand Field Championship events will be contested in Murfreesboro on May 26th.