As the Outdoor Track and Field season comes to a close, the Montgomery Catholic Racing Knights are among the elite teams heading to the State Meet this weekend in Gulf Shores. The Boys qualified their largest contingent ever by taking second place at the Sectional Meet held at Smiths Station April 23-24. The Girls also qualified an elite group by finishing third in the team standings.
Among the record setting performers at Sectionals were the Boys 4x100 Relay. The quartet of Thomas Stokes, Robert Smith, Brandon Thomas, and Reese Smith shattered the school record and qualified with the fastest time in the 4A classification with their blistering 44.13 performance. Sophomore Winston Wright also crushed two school records as he won both the 110 meter High Hurdles and the 300 meter Hurdles in new school records of 16.87 and 43.40, respectively. In other individual events, senior Reese Smith placed second in the 100 and fourth in the 200 meters. His senior brother Robert placed fifth in the 100 and sixth in the 200. Junior Brandon Thomas took silver in both the 200 and 400 meter dashes. Seniors Tay and Tray McCurdy placed 4th and 5th in the Shot Put. Tray also took bronze in the discus throw. Freshman Greg Ellis placed 4th in the Long Jump. Eighth grader Grant Walker took 8th in the 1600 meters. Junior Sam Walker finished 8th in the Javelin.
The Racing Knights scored in and qualified in all three relays as Robert Smith, Winston Wright, Greg Ellis, and Brandon Thomas teamed in the 4x400 meter relay and Andrew Lynch, Angel Padilla, Patrick Gregorius, and Grant Walker joined forces in the 4x800 meter relay. Both squads took 4th place.
For the Girls team, eighth grader Amaris Tyynismaa paced the team and earned Meet MVP by winning the 800 meter, 1600 meter, and 3200 meter runs in addition to working with Katelyn Stark, Annabel Starrett, and Isabelle Cochran by anchoring the 4x800 team to a silver medal. Sophomore Tamrah Tucker established a new school record in the 100 meter dash in the preliminaries of 12.80 on Friday and then won the finals on Saturday in 12.83. She also set another school record in the 200 preliminaries with her 26.74 and grabbed second in the finals with a 26.82. In the 400 meters, she placed 7th in 65.29. Eighth grader Isabelle Cochran placed 6th in the 800 meter run and also qualified for state in the 400 meters. Freshman Katelyn Stark advanced to state in the 1600 and 3200 meter runs. Iyana Tate, a sophomore, earned second place with her toss of 75-09. Freshman Annabel Starrett also scored for the team by finishing 7th in the 100 hurdles and 8th in the 300 hurdles. In relay action, the girls qualified also qualified in the 4x400 meters as Sarah Beth Littrell, Brayley Mularkey, Isabelle Cochran, and Tamrah Tucker took bronze.
Written by John Terino
