Mays Day: Heights' star has hand in 5 wins at Kangaroo Relays
Posted On: Sunday, Feb. 21 2010 05:16 AM
By Kevin Posival
Killeen Daily HeraldHad the Kangaroo Relays handed out gold medals, Harker Heights' Melissa Mays would've stepped on the bus home with five.
Mays, one of five Division I signees that raced Saturday at Leo Buckley Stadium, won the long and triple jumps and helped the Lady Knights win three relays, though neither points nor differentiated medals were handed out in the opening outdoor track meet of the season.
"I think I could've done better with the triple, but it was the weather, so I couldn't really have done that bad," Mays said. "I think, overall, we did really, really good for a first meet. I just hope that as the meets go on, we'll get better and better and hopefully, win district this year."
Everyone – from first- to last-place finishers – received identical medals and all the field events, minus high jump and pole vault, were placed on team totals.
Mays and Heights teammate Aliese Hyde, who also ran on the Lady Knights' winning 800- and 1,600-meter and middle distance relays will join Ellison's Prezel Hardy at Texas A&M next year.
Killeen's DreVan Anderson-Kaapa (Houston) anchored the Roos' third-place 3,200 and distance medley relays. Regan Tindell (Missouri) led Belton's first-place distance medley and second-place 3,200 relays.
Hardy, who anchored Ellison's 5A state champion 800 and silver-medal 400 relays and won the 100 at the state meet in a wind-aided 10.08 seconds, led the Eagles' winning 400 relay Saturday and their second-place 800 relay. Copperas Cove beat the Eagles by nearly a full second.
Ellison's sprint relay, despite a bad exchange between Hardy and Michael Bryan, was almost two seconds faster than second-place Cove's.
"Last year we started off at 43 (seconds), so this year it's a whole two-second difference so it's way better for us," Bryan said. "We could drop our time by a lot because our last handoff was bad. We just work on that in practice, we'll be good."
The Ellison boys, who finished 10 points behind 5A state champion Rowlett at the state meet, also won the 1,600 relay, the distance medley, the sprint medley and the throwers' relay.
Nieto Hall led the Eagles to a 1-2-3 finish in the shot put and Darian Brown led Ellison's discus throwers to a 1-3-5 finish. Ellison also had the top long jump team total behind Bryan's individual-winning 22-5½ jump.
Shoemaker's Jahyda Reed won the girls high jump and Copperas Cove's Tim Jones, Rashawn Gentle and Johnathan Bridges finished 1-2-3, respectively, in the boys' high jump.
In addition to winning in the pole vault and the 800 relay, the Bulldawgs also won the middle distance relay and the hurdle shuttle. The Harker Heights boys won the 3,200 relay.
The Lady Knights won six of the nine relays, including the hurdle shuttle, the sprint medley and 400 relays without Mays and Hyde.
Shoemaker won the 3,200 relay and Killeen won the throwers' relay.
Belton's Amy Parette won the girls pole vault and Harker Heights' Regan Gilbert broke the school record with a vault of 15-feet, 1-inch.
"I really wanted 15-6 because that's a new (personal best) but (15-1) feels good," Gilbert said. "It makes me feel good about the rest of the season."
Contact Kevin Posival at
kposival@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7562.