Looking back at the John Jacobs

Now that I’ve finally emerged from my Phil Mickelson shrine — we lefties have to stick together — I’ve had a chance to reflect on the weekend at the John Jacobs track meet at OU.

One notable effect from the change to Saturday rather than Friday for the meet was a drop in fan attendance and athlete participation. In talking to some athletes and coaches, there were a lot of kids gone taking the ACT, and several schools held their prom on Saturday, so some kids chose that over track. I have absolutely no basis for this, only a gut feeling, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it go back to Friday next spring.

Anyway, on to the performances. Some of the following has appeared in the newspaper, some if it hasn’t, but all of it was entertaining:

Southmoore blazes to relay, wins team title 

From a coach’s perspective, Southmoore’s boys 400-meter relay run was slowed by a bad start and two poor baton handoffs. On the clock, it was almost a state record.

The team of Julian Wilson, D’Vante Henry, Ethan Baker and Derek Serowski logged a time of 41.10 to win the event, only a fraction off the state record time of 40.96, which is held by Lawton MacArthur’s 1983 state championship relay team.

The SaberCats only earned gold in two other events — taking the top two spots in the 100-meter and 200-meter runs — but that was good enough for 76 team points and a one-point win over Edmond Memorial in the Division 1 boys competition at the John Jacobs High School Track Invitational Saturday at the University of Oklahoma.

John Marshall won less dramatically in Division 2 boys with 138 points, 63 points better than second-place Ada.

The Bears won gold in the 800 and 1,600 relays. Emmanuel Denson won the 300 hurdles and the Bears swept the top three spots in the 400, led by Elijah Gill’s winning time of 50.86.

Piedmont girls seeking repeat

With only seven girls who qualified for the Class 4A state meet last year, Piedmont still found a way to win. Five of those athletes are back this season, and Trinity Johnson’s team is looking for another title.

The 4A girls field is deep, with teams like Douglass, Seminole and last year’s runner-up, Madill. But the Lady Wildcats are off to a good start, winning Division 2 Saturday by 40 points, despite it being just their third meet of the year.

“A lot of things have to happen to win state, but with the girls we have, we should be in the hunt,” Johnson said. “We’ve got a good mixture of sprint and distance runners.”

And they got a boost from Madison Berryman, who won the Division 2 long jump Saturday at 17-0 ¾ in her first meet of the year. She missed the first two while participating with the tennis team. Sarah Peoples (200 meters), Megan Fuller (300 hurdles) and Jori Davis (1,600) all won events and Piedmont took gold in the 800 relay.

Tulsa Union dominated girls’ Division 1 with a 70-point victory, winning in five individual runs and three relays.

‘Eventful day’ for Guthrie’s Robinson

At a typical meet, Emmanuel Robinson would run a leg of the 400-meter relay, but none of the other three sprinters attended Saturday’s event. They were back in Guthrie preparing for prom Saturday night.

“I figured I’d come here, get a few races in, then go to prom,” Robinson said. “This is one of the meets where you see where everybody is, so I wanted to see where I stood.