Weekend in Review April 9th-16th

A weekend of heavy competition lead to another great weekend of performances. The track and field gods smiled on most of the state with great weather allowing for athletes to perform near their best. Around the state coaches are checking mo.milesplit.com's ranking list as the contenders for state titles are becoming clearer each day. Click here if you are a coach and would like to vote on the Missouri Coach's Poll. The weekend of great meets was kicked off by the Henle Holmes Invite. The Henle Holmes is in its 40th year and one of the crown jewels of the regular seasons. Time and time again some of the best teams in the St. Louis area come to the meet at full strength. The meet was won by a rising boys squad from Parkway Central lead by hall of fame coach Steve Warren. Additionally, Parkway North unveiled a squad that demonstrated enough talent to bring home a state trophy. North hurdlers ran statewide number 1s in both hurdle races and a relay squad put together a ridiculous time in the 4x200 meter relay. On the girl's side was a tight battle between class 4 powers between MICDS and Parkway Central. MICDS won the day by four points off the strong performances of their sprint relays and in the jumping events. Zion Pearson had a great day winning the 4x200, 4x100, Triple Jump, and Long Jump. Zion broke the meet record in the long jump blasting off the ground and covering 18 feet of sand. We have 100s of photos and dozens of videos to document the two-day event. Click here to catch all of our coverage. 

At Jefferson City, a number of teams battled it out at the Captial City Relays. Jefferson City Jays are the current hosts of the Missouri High School state championships. The Captial City Relays is a fun meet and an opportunity for coaches to help their athletes get the butterflies out of their stomach by performing at the venue where the state championship will take place later in May. The meet was a hot one! We the last race was finished the meet accumulated 68 milesplit elite performances. The host school on the boy's side looked strong. Their 4x800 flirted with the 8min barrier and should drop below that magic mark in the coming weeks. Devin Roberson looked like a monster launching the discus over 172-11 ft. The also won the rarely run 4x100 meter Shuttle Hurdle Relay. On the girl's side coach Asiki Siti of Hazelwood Central has been on an absolutely great run destroying the competition team score. The team was anchored by a 1 and 2 finish in the 100-meter dash. The squad crossed the line with Deja Ingram and Brittney Johnson. They also won the high jump with Taylor Ramsey crossing the bar at 5'6.5. In the sprint relays they ran state number 1s in the 4x100 and 4x200. Each week that goes by it seems like Hazelwood Central is the only team that can give Lee's Summit West a run for their money.

Last but not least was the Dale Collier Invite at Kirkwood High School. Dale Collier, Corey Sibert, and Henle Holmes make for a crazy trifecta of ridiculous performances statewide. The Dale Collier attracts a large number of teams from across the state including those from Kansas City and Columbia, Missouri. Jayson Ashford did his best to win the athlete of the week winning the sprint triple crown finishing 1st in the 100, 200, and 400-meter dashes. Jayson may have crazy sprint form but he runs some crazy times to go with his unique stride. The latest member of the first family in distance running Victor Mugeche blow away the field on a very windy day in the 3200 beat all his opponents by nearly 33 seconds crossing the line at 9:28.99. The race of the day might have been in the 300IH with Martez Manuel of Rock Bridge and Antonio Norman from Cleveland NJROTC being spilt by 3 hundredths of a second with Matez narrowly winning in 39.04. 

On the girl's side, Hava Turner had one of her best days as a high school athlete running a blazing 100 dash time in 12.07 and coming back to win the 200 dash later in the day. Nerinx hall's long sprint relays looked strong winning both the 4x800 and 4x400. In the field, Reagen Kanagawa is doing her best to earn her preseason ranking winning the javelin by over 40 ft!!!! Throwing 146-11 feet in the process and went on to win the discus. Kara Steele hopped, skipped, and jumped her way to a state number 1 in the triple jump leaping 39-4.75 feet. 

This coming week we will see major invites from Ladue Horton Watkins and the massive Kansas University relays!