Friday Division 3 & 4 Recap

Tony Chavez bests Jalen Montgomery in the second heat of the divsion 4 prelims of the 300H. Arizona Milesplit Photo.

It had been a windy couple of days at Mesa Community College's Riggs Stadium. Now Divisions Three and Four were up at bat Friday afternoon and while the sprinkling died down earlier in the meet, the wind became progressively relentless through the evening.

Div. III Boys Shot Put

In the D3 Boys Shot Put, was dominated by the heavy favorites and specifically by Show Low sophomore Jaisen Brown who delivered a performance of 50-04.25. This would be the first of many dominating performances by underclassman.

Div. III Girls Discus Throw

In the Girls DIII Discus, Sayge McKrill (Show Low, Sr.) threw 129-01 over 15 feet ahead of the competition. At 5'5", she explained that being smaller than most of her competition requires her to focus on other areas. “I'm very technical and I have to be fast and flexible. So the biggest thing was being aggressive and having a lot of speed," said McKrill.

Girls Long Jumps

In Division III, Kaitlyn Wayne (Monument Valley, Sr.) leapt 18-06.25 for the LJ Title. Annika Weisbrod's (Scottsdale Preparatory Academy, Jr.) mark of 17-08 stood out as the only one greater than 17 feet in Division IV. My Coach had me working on getting explosive off the board and really driving through with my arms," said Annika. “I am thrilled to be State Champion!" she proclaimed having improved her personal best mark by over two feet since last year.

Div. IV Boys Hurdles

In the Boys' Hurdle events, Yuma Catholic's Treyshon Malone (Sr.) prevailed as the fastest in Friday's preliminaries, first with a PR of 14.81 in the 110 Hurdles. He later achieved 40.02 in the 300 Hurdles, with a last second stumble, still the fastest of the day. He places his loyalty in the squad and asserts, “I want to put points up for my team, so that we can hopefully get a State Title." Going into Saturday, he has expectations to be claim Championship titles in the 110 Hurdles, 300 Hurdles, 200 meter dash, and the Long Jump. Tony Chavez and Jesse Llanez won the other two preliminary heats.

Div. IV Girls 4x800 Relay

For the first final on the track, Scottsdale Preparatory Academy and Northland Preparatory Academy went toe-to-toe practically the whole race, with Scottsdale holding off NPA. Scottsdale anchor Amber Miller (Sr.) said the team's intended strategy was, “stay with the lead girl", and that they wanted, “the 2nd and 3rd leg(s) to get a little bit of a lead for me, 'cause I have a kick at the end that can sometimes help me. I did feel a lot of pressure; I felt like these girls were running so hard and I needed to run as hard as them," said Miller.

Div. IV Boys 1600m Run

Logan Pinkerton (Gilbert Christian, Jr.) accomplished the middle-distance double for Division IV. For the 1600 he explained that he wasn't running for time, and so with the intent to win he, “had them break it for the first two laps and then just take off," which resulted in a time of 4:32.64. When it came to the 800 meters, Logan preferred a more impulsive approach to his victory in 1:59.27. “I like to run the first lap pretty quick; I just run my own race," said Pinkerton.

Div. III Boys 1600m Run

In the Division III boys 1600, the showdown between Rio Rico's Carlos Villarreal (Sr.) and Jeffrey Miller (Page, Sr.) was sure to deliver. As Carlos and Jeffrey crossed the halfway point in two minutes, announcer Ron Smith asked the crowd to get out of their seats so as to feed their energy to Villarreal who was on pace for a State record. Carlos' kicked into high gear on the last lap and finished in a State Record of 4:03.97! After the race Carlos said he had modest goals for his last State Championship meet. “I just wanted to soak it all in at the last State Meet. I didn't have a certain I wanted to hit. I just went out and ran," recounted Villarreal.

Div. III Boys 800m Run

In the Division III Boys 800 meters, Jordan Gardner (Snowflake, Jr.) booked hard into 1st over the first 200. On the back stretch Villarreal (Rio Rico, Sr.) snuck up on Gardner's shoulder, crossing through a 57 second split. Carlos continued to press, and claimed his second victory in 1:54.28. Gardner followed in 1:56.32 and Riley Evans of American Leadership Academy was the third and final runner to break 2 minutes in 1:59.74. More details can be found here.

Div. III & IV Girls 3200

Super-Frosh Maya Smith of Northland Prep held nothing back and garnered her second Division IV State Championship Title in 11 minutes and 22.98 seconds. In Division III, Sierra Jarriel (Fountain Hills, Jr.) blazed the way for the first mile. Over the next lap Chamique DuBois (Window Rock, So.) caught Jarriel and held on with an even pace for an 11:16.92 victory. DuBois' Coach, Ryan Dodson, 29, said that he and Chamique discussed the game plan of, “going out and racing confident." Like so many other Under-classman who stood out amongst Division III and IV athletes, Chamique took on the will to win without hesitation. “My plan was to not worry about the other girls and to run my own race."

Div. III 4x400m

The Division III Boys 1600m Relay came down to a wickedly close finish between Juniors, Luke Zuluaga of Seton Catholic and Jordan Gardner of Snowflake. Zuluaga would hold off Gardner 3:28.23 to 3:30.81. Earlier in the afternoon they had both run the fastest preliminary open 400s, 49.81 and 50.61 respectively. The final event of the night was taken by the Sahuarita girls 4x400 Relay team in Division three, three of who were on their 4x100m Relay team. With their lead, Sahuarita anchor Taylor McLelland, (Sr.) held off distance specialists, Sierra Jarriel and Allie Shadler (Rio Rico, So.) for times of 4:07.99, 4:08.78 and 4:13.19 respectively.