The UCBAC Track and Field Championships concluded Saturday in Perryville with a double-encore performance by a stellar brother-and-sister act.
For Christina Riggins, the encore was a seemingly effortless anchor lap on the C. Milton Wright girls 4x400-meter relay team. For Matt Riggins, it was in the same but in the boys 4x400.
There was much applause and no pressure for the two sprinters because CMW had already clinched the team titles in both divisions. The Riggins duo had done its job by winning five individual events in the two-day meet among the high schools of Harford and Cecil counties.
Matt won the 100 in 11.20 seconds and the 200 in 22.89, and he teamed with Dante Brown, Kenny King and Joel Klopcic to win the 4x400 in 3:28.67 with a 50.2 anchor. In the girls' events, Christina won the 100 in 12.39, the 200 in 25.52 and the long jump at 17 feet, 9 inches. She ran a 61-second leg on the 4x400 with teammates Lindsay Stevenson, Brooke Zeberlein and Sydney Gray.
Gray put Christina Riggins close to the lead in the 4x400 with a 59.5 third leg after winning the 400 easily in 58.90. She also ran on the winning 4x200 relay (1:50.77) with Zeberlein, Stevenson and Aimee Bonner.
Zeberlein gave CMW 18 points in the hurdles despite running with an injured wrist that required a standing start. She won the 300 hurdles in 48.69 and finished second to Harford Tech's Ann Luna in the 100 hurdles. Luna won in 16.48, leading Tech to third place among the 15 teams.
Pam Koga turned a tough triple into 30 points for the Mustangs. She won the 3200 in 12:17.38, the 1600 in 5:31.27 and 800 in 2:25.74. Teammate Jessica Rogers finished second in the 1600 and Emma Martin second in the 800.
Martin, Rogers, Taylor Walker and Lauren Fortuna won the opening event of the meet, the 4x800 in 10:17.51. In all, the CMW girls won 10 of the 12 track events and two field events in accumulating 169 points. Kiarra Nowell was the winner of the two field events, throwing 34-7 1/4 in the shot put and 105-3 in the discus.
Perryville finished second in the girls team scoring. The Panthers, with a pole-vault win by Hailey McDonald at 9-6 and two second- and seven third-place finishes, scored 116.5 points.
Cierra Reid won the triple jump at 36-10 3/4 and took third in the 100 in leading Aberdeen to fourth place. Bel Air with a 4x100 victory by Maya White, Mackenzie Wills, Moriah Green and Samantha Bowen in 50.83, was fifth.
Destiny Buie won the high jump for Joppatowne and placed fourth in the 100 and 200.
Two meet records
Dante Brown gave the CMW boys a field event win on the first day, clearing 5-10 in the high jump. The Mustang boys did not begin to pull away from the field, however, until the final four events on day two. Then Riggins and Freddie Montgomery took one-two in the 200; the Mustangs 4x100 team placed third and the 4x400 team won.
Aberdeen and Perryville gave chase. Aberdeen won four events in the meet to finish second, behind CMW with 84, and Perryville was third with 81. For the Eagles, Kion Gibson won the 110 hurdles in 15.67; Mark Meynisse, the 400 in 51.62; Elijah Johnson, the shot put at 47-11; and the team of Gavin Brennan, Nathan Reed, Victor Romero and Steven Nichols outran a strong field in the 4x800 in 8:22.63. Brennan later finished second in the 800, 0.21 behind Bo Manor's Ty Franks.
Two meet records fell in the Saturday session. North East's Dean Palmer pole-vaulted 14-0, one foot higher than the mark set by Bel Air's Matt Cross in 2008. Jeremy Middlebrooks took flight in the 300 hurdles, winning in 38.67 to break the record set by Perryville's Cody Richardson in 2011.
Middlebrooks, the league leader this season in the 200, attempted to win that event just minutes after his hurdle victory but found the double to be impossible; he finished eighth. Edgewood, winner of the boys title last year, finished seventh as a team. The Rams lost distance ace Langston Gash to a stress fracture of the foot after the 4x800 relay.
Havre de Grace placed ninth with 46 points on the strength of its sprinting and jumping. The Warriors won the 4x200 in 1:33.47 with the team of Kodi Rupe, Matt Chin, Elliott Scott and Josh Penn. Jack Smith replaced Scott for the 4x100 to win that relay in 44.79.
Nick Fransham was a double winner. The North Harford senior applied a strong kick to win the 3200 by 19 seconds in 9:43.41. His kick carried him to a more narrow victory in the 1600. He ran 4:25.28 with hot pursuit from Fallston's Andrew Parks, 4:27.34; Bo Manor's Ty Franks, 4:27.70; and Bel Air's Kieran McDermott, 4:29.14. Fransham's time barely missed the meet record of 4:25.0.
Other event winners were Darnell Pink of Harford Tech, long jump, 20-11; Alex Kerns of Rising Sun, discus, 131-06; and Raiquon Estep of Elkton, triple jump, 42-4.75.
Driver wins two in IAAM
John Carroll junior Holly Driver raced to a double victory in the IAAM Track and Field Championships Saturday in Baltimore.
She won the 100- and 300-meter hurdle races and placed second in the high jump to score most of the points with which the Patriots placed sixth among 15 teams.
Her win in the 300 hurdles gave John Carroll a repeat victory in that event. Kristen Isoldi won it in 2014 in 45.25 seconds, a Harford County record. Driver almost matched her teammate's time, finishing in 45.84.
She ran 15.57 in winning the 100 hurdles, an event in which she placed second last year. She cleared 4-10 in the high jump, the same height as the winner.
Behind Driver, freshman Ashlee Kothenbeutel placed eighth in the 100 hurdles in 17.26. The Patriots also earned points from Adria Pirozzi's seventh-place finish in the 1600 in 5:21.39 and Alex Dippel's third-place finish in the discus at 87-8.
In the MIAA competition held concurrently, Steven Kutcher placed third in the pole vault for the Patriots, clearing 12-6; Andrew Van Der Werff was fifth in the discus at 120-6; Evan Moore, eighth in the 3200 in 10:00.67 and 10th in the 1600 in 4:34.45; and Mark Pickett, 12th in the 800 in 2:03.24.