C Milton Wright won its second straight girls title and Aberdeen its first boys title in the 12th Annual UCBAC Track and Field Championships Wednesday in the rain in Perryville.
Despite a steady downpour, outstanding performances were plentiful over the two-day, 36-event program. The rain brought about the most remarkable performance of the meet, which came in the boys 300-meter hurdles.
Harford Tech senior Donte Evans crashed to the track at the second hurdle. He bounced up and gave chase over the remaining two-thirds of the race. A few meters from the finish, he caught the leaders, William Ashman of Havre de Grace and Dominic Rodano of Fallston, and surged past them to win by 0.06 in 43.59 seconds.
"I've never seen anything like it," Tech coach Darrell Diamond said.
Evans and the other hurdlers in the top-seeded section had to endure two recalls of the race when dampness caused a start failure of the electronic timing system. Earlier, the 110 hurdles had to be fully re-run because of a similar glitch. Jordan Day of Havre de Grace won both times, running an official 16.53 in the do-over.
Aside from the hurdle races, throws and pole vault, the rain had seemingly a minor effect on performances.
Predictably, Christina Riggins won three events to lead the CMW girls to the championship, scoring 38 of her team's 126 points. She won the 100 and 200 by comfortable margins and the long jump by a narrow one over Tech's Ann Luna, 16-3 1/4 to 16-1 1/2. Riggins also placed second in the high jump behind Tech's Beyonce Kelly, both clearing 5 feet.
The Mustangs got wins, too, from Alecia Rotunno in the 400 (1:00.27), Kiarra Nowell in the discus (97-8) and Pam Koga in the 3200 (11:50.77).
Perryville placed second among girls teams, with 117 points. For the Panthers, Jarah Cevis won the shot put at 33-5 and Autumn Estep, the 300 hurdles in 48.21.
Luna won the 100 hurdles in 16.48 and earned second-place awards in the long jump, 300 hurdles and 4x200 relay to lead the Cobras to third place among girls teams.
Bel Air's Alina Nagornyuk prevailed in the pole vault at 9 feet, and the Bobcats won two relays in placing fourth with 83 points. Samantha Bowen, Mackenzie Wills, Moriah Green and Julia Merritt took the 4x200 in 1:48.64. Kirsten Gary replaced Wills on the 4x100 team, which won in 51.04.
Patterson Mill's Katherine Eckart was a double winner, taking the 1600 in 5:27.42 and the 800, an event she won two years ago, in 2:27.1. She also anchored the winning 4x800 (9:58.87) and 4x400 teams (4:17.30). Ashley Betz, Marie Claire Cicenia and Marissa Lapinsky ran with her in the 4x800. Betz, Sia Barnes and Marissa Lapinski ran in the 4x400. Chyna Latimer won the triple jump at 33-2 1/4 to help the Huskies secure fifth place with 75 points.
Aberdeen boys edge Bel Air
The sprint-strong Bel Air boys won six events and Aberdeen, four, but the Eagles surpassed Bel Air by scoring 74 of their points with second-, third- and fourth-place finishes to win the team title with 114 points.
Isaiah Everett won the triple jump at 42-5 and the long jump at 20-9 1/2, leading a 1-2-3 Aberdeen sweep with Karl Lyons and Nyshaun Greene in the latter. Elijah Johnson threw 48 feet to win his third UCBAC championship in the shot put. Nathan Reed, Gavin Brennan and Diontre Barnes took second, third and fourth in the 400 behind Elkton's Zyphere Ruffin (51.79). The three Aberdeen quarter-milers, along with Daniel Foster, won the 4x400 in 3:38.60. Brennan also finished second in the 800 in 2:02.5.
Bel Air sophomore Kieran McDermott won the 800 in 2:00.2 after winning the 1600 in 4:26.67, a personal best. He began the meet by anchoring the 4x800 team of Kenny Connelly, Ethan Gray and Ethan Anderson to an 8:13.31 win.
Sprinters accounted for 41 of Bel Air's 105 points. Ryan Wills won the 100 in 11.20 and Michael Creighton, the 200 in 22.90. The two seniors teamed with Tim Hammond and Jonathan Sayihe to win the 4x100, nipping Elkton in a near dead heat in 44.60.
Edgewood's David Dzambasow built a big lead and held on to it to win the 3200 in 10:03.26. He also anchored the 4x800 to second place in 8:22.88. The Rams won the 4x200 in 1:34.10 with the foursome of Malik Bodrick, Jeremiah Leflore, Javan Milton and Andre Carr. Carr was the runner-up in both the 100 and 200 dashes. The Rams placed third in the team scoring.
Elkton, with wins by Ruffin in the 400 and Ray Johnson in the vault (11 feet), placed fourth among boys teams. Havre de Grace, which scored 27 points in the hurdles, finished fifth team-wise. The Warriors' Jordan Rogers placed second in the triple jump at 41-6 1/4.
North East, led by Alec Preisch, winner of the discus at 131-7 and runner-up in the shot put at 47-1, placed sixth. CMW, with a win by Dante Brown in the high jump (6 feet), was seventh.