The Carl Albert track teams traveled to Yukon High School for the 5A State Meet on May 10 and 11. The girls’ teams took home two medals and the boys’ team earned 1 medal in individual events and 12 in relays.
For the Lady Titans, senior Jasmine Bradley placed sixth in the 200 meters at 26.13 seconds. This came after Bradley failed to make it out of the preliminaries in the 400 for the first time in her high school career.
"I didn’t have a good day in the 400, but I turned everything around and got sixth in the 200," Bradley said. "Now I have six state medals total."
Senior Sydney DuPont finished fifth in the shot put with a toss of 37 feet.
For the Titans, sophomore Tre Bruner earned the bronze medal in the 200 meters at 22.51 seconds.
Bruner then teamed up with junior Phillip Lavoie and seniors Cameron Burge and Bryan Williams in the 4x200 relay to get on the podium at the fourth place position with a time of 1:31.51.
Junior Cameron Rowe was locked in an intense race with Dylan Dyer from Collinsville and Mason Bivens from Duncan in the last 100 meters of the 800 meter run, and when the competitors crossed the line it looked as if Rowe had earned himself with a podium spot by placing sixth. However, after video review, it was determined that Rowe was beaten by just a fraction of a second, placing him at seventh.
However, Rowe did not go home empty-handed. He was a member of the 4x800 relay (Jaydon Robinson, Alex Barron, Lavoie) that finished fourth at 8:20.98. Rowe was the only returning member of the relay team from last year’s team that finished seventh, less than half a second from medaling. Rowe used that as motivation in order to get over that hump and get on the stand.
"It really pushed me to do great things this season," Rowe said. "Last year, I ended the track season with a bad taste in my mouth and I basically didn’t want to have that taste again. Although we didn’t take first this year, we ranked as one of the top teams in the state, and we plan on getting even better for next year and winning the event."
The 4x800 relay will return every team member next year, so the team will surely be a contender for the state title come spring 2014.
The 4x400 relay (Burge, Lavoie, Melton Parham, Robinson) placed fifth at 3:30.62, the team’s fastest time all season. This race also marked Lavoie’s third event to medal, in addition to the 4x200 and the 4x800.
"It was a lot of pressure riding on me because I had so many people depending on me," Lavoie said. "But the pressure just pushed me to perform even better."
