Track And Field

Eric Evans felt like he did “what was expected but did not exceed anything” during Saturday’s Class AA, Region meet. However, the “expected” was more than enough to get Evans to the Class AA state track meet. He helped the Boyle County relay team run second to Mercer County in the 3,200-meter event and then was second to James Brown of Bell County in both the 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs on the Boyle track. Since the two top finishers in each event automatically advance to Thursday’s meet in Louisville, that means the Boyle senior will end his prep career in the state meet.

Members of the George Rogers Clark track team are state bound. The Cardinals will send 10 boys and a pair of girls to the state meet, set for May 28 at the University of Louisville. The team competed in the Region 7 Class 3A championship Tuesday night at Pulaski County, with the top two finishers in each event earning a ticket to the state event. Alex White placed first in the 3200-meter run, while Clay Dixon repeated as regional champion in the middle distance event of the 800-meter run. Dixon also reset the regional meet record in the 800 meter, a mark that he had set last year.

In one of their final tuneups before the regional this weekend, the East and West track and field teams had stong showings at the Central Kentucky Conference Meet last Friday. On the girls’ side, East placed sixth with 50 points and West placed ninth with 39 points. For the boys, West came in second behind Henry Clay. The Colts totaled 87 points. East placed fifth with 66. Girls West Jessamine’s  4x200-meter relay team, made up of Alyssa Dickens, Abby Wiggins, Allison Lyon and Sarah Redmon, placed fourth with a time of 1:52.45.

If you are looking for what is right in sports, today’s column is for you. Centre College track and field coach Lisa Owens is bringing the best track and field camp ever held in this state to Danville in three weeks. However, registration has been lagging — as noted in a column last week — in spite of the bevy of Olympians, including Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Tyson Gay, who will be at the Maximum Velocity Track & Field Academy. However, the feel-good story comes from Joni and Mark Morgan, the parents of former Boyle cross country and track standouts Daniel, Patrick and Sam Morgan.

Centre College will have former Olympic gold medal winners and possible 2012 Olympians on campus June 5-8 for the Maximum Velocity Track and Field Academy that Centre coach Lisa Owens thought would be a huge hit with participants. However, with the camp less than a month away, Owens says entries “have been slowly coming in” and she hopes they continue to pick up as they have recently. “To be honest with you, as much as I have advertised for the camp, I have been pretty disappointed with the registrations with such a prestigious lineup of clinicians we have coming.

The George Rogers Clark track team competed in a meet at Bourbon County recently. In the three-team meet, the Cardinals placed first with a score of 65. Bourbon County was in second with 61 and Paris was third with 20 points. The Lady Cards placed first with a score of 59, followed by Paris (41) and Bourbon County with 20.   Mark Davis placed first in the 400-meter with a time of 55.84. Ben Petrey was first in the 800-meters with a time of 2:17.05, followed by teammate Brandon Bailey in second with a 2:17.22 and Cody Cox finished third with a time of 2:34.

Emily Frith has already overcome a much bigger obstacle in her senior year, so she wasn’t about to let a little head cold slow her down. Even though she wasn’t feeling her best, the Lincoln County senior still ran the best time of her career in the girls 1,600-meter run Saturday at the E.G. Plummer Invitational. She won the race at Admiral Stadium by about nine seconds, with a time of 5 minutes, 12.83 seconds, improving her mood if not her health. “I didn’t feel all that great going into it, but I’m happy with my time,” Frith said.

At Alvis Johnson Field, Harrodsburg Tuesday GIRLS Team scores — 1. Boyle County (BC) 83; 2. Mercer County (MC) 58; 3. Burgin (B) 52; 4. Garrard County 3. 3,200 relay — 1. Mercer County (Anna Mollett, Carli Souder, Erika Kehrt, Shannon Murray) 11:33.9. 100 hurdles — 1. Natalie Settle (BC) 17.5; 2. Elena Raffay (BC) 19.3. 100 — 1. Katie Lester (BC) 14.2; 2. Asia Dunn (MC) 14.5; 3. Kacie Adams (BC) 14.6. 800 relay — 1. Boyle County (Kate Carman, Settle, Lester, Logan Arnold)

The Centre College softball team was eliminaited from the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament Saturday with an 11-5 loss to Southwestern at Greencastle, Ind. Southwestern scored six runs in the first inning and led 9-0 before the Colonels (14-23) scored three in the bottom of the sixth inning. Ashley Christian was 2-for-4 and scored twice, Kate Martello had two hits and Regina Sena drove in two runs for Centre. The Colonels used a three-run first inning to defeat Rhodes 4-0  earlier Saturday to stay alive in the losers’ bracket.

LEXINGTON — The Mercer County boys and Boyle County girls each took third Saturday at the Tates Creek Invitational. The Boyle girls won three events and finished with 79 points, while Bryan Station won with 103 points. Bryan Station also won the boys title, finishing with 134 points, while the Titans had one win and scored 52 points. For Boyle, the team of Logan Arnold, Tabitha Evans, Kate Carman and Natalie Settle won the 1,600-meter relay and Arnold, Rachel Ditto, Nikki Coffey and Maddie Kriz won the 3,200 relay.