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3 Track Athletes Get To State Event

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By DAREK SHARP

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 3, 2008

PLANT CITY - Durant High's tremendous distance runners and Plant City's all-everything junior are in Winter Park today for the Class 4A state Track & Field Championships.

Cougars John Mitchell and Grace VanDeGrift not only qualified, they did so in two events each. Plant City's Jasmine Pope also earned a trip to Winter Park's Showalter Park, site of today's state meet.

To get there all three had to perform well at last week's Region 4A-2 event held at Gaither High School. A top-four finish was needed to qualify for state, but Mitchell, VanDeGrift and Pope had outstanding performances.

VanDeGrift, a freshman, came away with two regional championships.

In the 800-meter run, Mitchell, a junior who will be making his first trip to the state meet, finished in second place with a time of 1:56.37, more than three seconds ahead of the cut-off point (fifth place). Mitchell enjoyed a slightly larger cushion in finishing in third place at the mile run.

"My main goal was to place top-four, and some of the other guys really were giving it their all," Mitchell said. "I think possibly I can win it in the 800, I think I can pull it off. The mile might be hard."

Schools at the Region 4 meet were not only from the Tampa Bay area but from the east coast as well. Countryside won the boys team crown, followed by Sarasota Riverview and Palm Bay.

In the girls meet, Vero Beach edged host Gaither 93 points to 82. For Durant, VanDeGrift almost on her own gave the Cougars a ninth-place finish.

VanDeGrift won both the mile and two-mile races, and neither finish was close. She finished the mile in 5:16.68, which was almost five seconds faster than that of runner-up Katherine McMeekin of East Lake High. In the two-mile run, she was 10 seconds ahead of the field.

"I really didn't expect it to be that easy, since I came in eighth place at regionals in cross country," VanDeGrift said.

A big reason for her vast improvement from the cross country season is her health. VanDeGrift was suffering from the effects of a pulled quadricep muscle.

Adding to Durant's team score was Kate Williamson, who barely missed qualifying as she came in fifth in the shot put. One spot behind her was Plant City's Tabatha McDonald.

Pope posted the fifth-best long jump in preliminaries but surpassed that with an 18-5 effort in the finals, good for second place and a trip to state. Pope was fifth in the 200-meter dash and sixth in the 100.

Dexter Barge had the second-best outing for the Cougar boys, coming in seventh in the high jump.

Chad Hansen, who gave Plant City High the district title in the shot put, settled for sixth place at regional competition and was ninth in the discus. Justin Torbert was seventh in the high jump for the Raiders.

Lance Carmony, Kenney Adams, Brian Goodman and the 4x100 relay team also represented Plant City at regional competition.

Reporter Darek Sharp can be reached at dsharp@tampatrib.com.

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