Don Hardin Alamo Relays Shine Bright

The Don Hardin Alamo Relays had the potential to be a great meet and it hit in a big way on Saturday at Gustafson Stadium. The meet featured 14 schools and with District meets less than two weeks away the athletes showed that they are getting ready for championship season.

The varsity girls team title came down to three teams; Brandeis, Johnson and Reagan. In the end, the Rattlers won with 91 points while Johnson had 88 points and Brandeis finished with 86 points.

The Rattlers received a superstar performance from senior sprinter Nnenna Opara. She started her day by running the anchor leg on the winning 4x100m relay team that ran 47.65 and was not seriously challenged thanks to some smooth handoffs and an outstanding third leg from Kennedy Sands. Brennan finished second in 48.88 and Johnson closed hard to take third in 48.91. From there, Opara showed her amazing closing speed in winning the 100m in 12.01 and 200m in 24.82. In each case, a slow start out of the blocks put her behind at the start. In the 200m, she was still two strides behind London Graham (Brandeis) with 30m left, but she had a strong finish. Graham took second in 24.95 while Harlan freshman Dessalyn Rogers nabbed third place in 25.34. Johnson's Jordan Peters was the runner-up in the 100m (12.23) while Sands grabbed the bronze medal in 12.34.

The meet opened with the 3200m and the Johnson duo of Isabella Porter and Emily Krot ran together to wear out the competition. Porter won in 11:15.27 and Krot was exactly one second behind her. Brenann's Kailyn Brunson took third place in 11:20.99 and was getting warmed up for later exploits.

After the 3200m, the varsity meet switched to field events. Clark's Rachel Nwankwo had a huge performance in the horizontal jumps. First, she won the triple jump with a mark of 36-4.5 while Deyanna Smith (35-3) of Holmes and Abigail Beal (34-9.5) of Medina Valley took the remaining medals. In the long jump, Nwankwo had to go big to hold off Stevens' Kalia Abernathy who jumped 17-9. Nwankwo went 18-8.5 which was a new personal best. Beal picked up her second third place medal of the day with a leap of 17-2.5.

In the throwing events Annabelle Jehl of Medina Valley and Jera Salters of Johnson went head-to-head. Jehl took gold in the discus with a throw of 134-2 and Salters settled for second place with a mark of 126-3. Salters evened the score by winning the shot put with a heave of 37-1 and Jehl was second with a throw of 36-4. Brandeis' Charleigh Jacobs was the third-place finisher in the discus with a throw of 106-0 and simultaneously she was in the pole vault where she finished second with an 11-0 clearance. Harlan's Kiara Shaw was the third place finisher in the shot put with a strong throw of 36-0.25.

The winner of the pole vault was Johnson's Taylor Fuentespina who cleared 11-6. Overall, there were six girls who went over 10-feet and it was Reagan's Sloane Neal who nabbed third with a 10-6 clearance.

The final field event was won by Warren's Lillian Hubbard who cleared 5-1 in the high jump to win a tight competition. Kiyana Perez of Medina Valley and Olivia Mason of Reagan each went 5-0 to take second and third, respectively.

Back on the track, Clark freshman Jayla Flemons showed that she is someone to take notice of heading into the championship season. She won the 800m, by pushing the pace hard to start and then she also showed a strong finish to win in 2:17.49. She held off Brunson who ran 2:19.30 and Medina Valley's Camia Patterson took third in 2:22.19. In the 400m Flemons made up the stagger on Trinity Pinto (Medina Valley) by the end of the first curve and drove hard through the first 200m. After a smooth final curve, she finished strong over the final 100m to pull away from Pinto and win in 57.26 while Pinto clocked a 58.71. Payton Ware of Brandeis was third in 1:01.29.

Both hurdle races were great. In the 100mh, Syenna Lara of Warren solidified her spot at the top in San Antonio with a fast time of 14.35. O'Connor's Madisyn Jackson was no slouch taking second in 14.92 and Perez was third in 15.27. Jackson got her own gold medal in the 300mh with a brilliant race running 44.06 and Lara settled for second place in 44.89 while Perez took the bronze in 46.73.

The Brandeis 4x200m relay team had been great all season long and the quartet of Graham, Faith Ponds, Kimberly Campbell and Leila Smith-Harris won in 1:4138. Warren (1:44.63) and Brennan (1:44.72) battled it out for the next two spots.

Kailyn Brunson finally got her gold medal in the 1600m after picking up a silver and bronze earlier in the day. She finished in 5:15.11 to hold off a hard-charging Ada Mathias of Brandeis who finished second in 5:16.29 and Krot tallied third place in 5:20.18.

O'Connor won the final event of the meet, the 4x400m relay. Madison Libson, Macy Bitner and Brooke Black gave the baton to Jackson with a small lead and she extended it as they won in 3:57.37. Brandeis was second in 4:02.07 and Warren took third in 4:03.51.

The varsity boys meet was also closely contested, and it ended up with Brennan and Johnson tying for the team title with 131 points apiece. The Bears won five events while the Jaguars took gold in three events.

In the opening 3200m race, the Jaguars did well with Michael Repper-Molina and Manny Mood taking second and third, respectively and they had four total runners break 10 minutes when counting the JV race, but it was Sotomayor's Paul Wallace who controlled the race. Wallace took a lead and never looked back as he won by nearly seven seconds in 9:40.52.

Harlan was without their national champion sprinter, Tate Taylor, for the meet, but that did not prevent their triple jumpers from sweeping the competition. Noah Folks (44-3) won first and was followed by Demari Fields (42-1.5) and Jordan Butler (41-6.5) to get the Hawks off to a great start.

The discus saw Medina Valley's Gibson Conard (155-10) defeat Warren's Cal Carpenter (155-5) by a scant five inches. Hudson Ratcliff of Vandegrift held on for third with a toss of 147-10. Brandeis' Nick Barber finished just out of the medals in the discus, but he won the shot put with a throw of 49-3.5. Medina Valley's Alejandro Hernandez (47-2) and Jaden Gil (44-2.25) of Stevens took the next two spots.

Brennan got their first win of the day in the high jump when Kimball Gurr cleared 6-6 and had fewer misses than Harlan's Emanuel Francisco who also went of 6-6. Noah Marquez (Medina Valley) nabbed third with a height of 6-2.

Johnson matched Brennan in the next event that was won by Thomas Bucks. Bucks nearly matched his personal record by winning with a height of 16-6. Phillip Lou (Vandegrift) went 13-6 and Bucks' teammate Tanner Sarno (13-0) was third.

The long jump was a fun event with six jumpers going over 21-feet. In the end, it was Reagan's Jykel Harmon taking the win with a mark of 21-10.25 while Charlie Zinsmeyer of Medina Valley was less than an inch behind in 21-9.5. Jake Grullon of O'Connor got his day started with a third-place jump of 21-6.5.

On the track, Grullon excelled in both hurdle events. In the 110mh, he was first to the first hurdle and never look back running 14.47 to win over Brandeis' Caiden Rodriguez (15.23) and Brennan's Cristian Glenn (15.48). In the 300mh, Rodriguez was the leader at the first hurdle and Grullon was still in third with two hurdles remaining, but he ran down both Rodriguez (39.33) and Johnson's Austin Anderson (39.29) to win in 38.98.

Brennan's sprint crew took center stage after the field events completed. The 4x100m team of Devin Gills, Aaron Turner, Micai Thompson and Clifton McBride won in 41.87 while Warren (42.24) and Reagan (42.26) gave chase. Gills followed that by running a personal best in the 100m, 10.68, to defeat some tough opponents in Reagan's Rayshun Hurt (10.75) and Clark's Tristan Childs (10.92).

In the 4x200m, it was Elijah Venegas, Malik Mitchell, Gills and McBride winning in a school-record time of 1:27.25, the top time in San Antonio this year. Reagan (1:28.91) and Johnson (1:29.36) ran well to take the next two spots.

Brennan kept their winning ways going in the 800m. Wolfgang Thoener took control of the race early and never let go. He won comfortably in 1:57.33 while Chris Esparza of O'Connor was second in 1:59.63 and Clark's Hudson Harrington was third in 2:01.30.

Johnson hit their stride in the 400m which led to even bigger things in the 4x400m relay. Jaguar teammates Abdou Ndiaye and Yashiyah Griffin took the top two spots in the 400m in 48.77 and 49.62, respectively. Brennan's Michael Davis (50.33) finished in third place. In the 4x400m relay the Jaguars solidified their spot as the top team in the area with a winning time of 3:19.81. Brennan ran their best time of the season, 3:22.06, to take second and Brandeis was third in 3:23.83.

Warren's Isaiah Huerta was the winner of the 200m in 22.19 into a decent head-wind. Johnson's Briggs Bailey (22.65) and Reagan's Ian Garza (22.70) fought it out for the next two spots.

The 1600m had a little bit of a surprise winner in Clark's Aidan Adams who won in 4:30.99. His season best time was not as good as some of the other runners in the race, but he prevailed as the champion. Repper-Molina won his second silver medal of the day with a time of 4:32.47 and Mood had to settle for another bronze with his time of 4:32.70.

This meet was a great preview of what is to come at the local 6A District meets even with some of the top distance runners competing at the Texas Distance Festival in the Dallas area.