Wildcats opened track, field season at Hardin Valley

Boys 400-meter (Photo by Luther Simmons)

Boys 400-meter dash (Photo by Luther Simmons)

HARDIN VALLEY—The Oak Ridge Wildcats opened their track and field season at Hardin Valley on Saturday, March 26.

The boys and girls teams finished about in the middle of the pack, Wildcats Coach Allen Etheridge said. The girls team was 11th out of 29 teams, and the boys were 18th in a field of 27.

But the teams didn’t set up to “score a ton of points,” Etheridge said.

The Wildcats were missing a few athletes, and with many new students on the team, they were trying new athletes in a few events and experimenting with different combinations.

“I saw a lot to be happy about,” Etheridge said. The teams have potential to be really good, Etheridge said.

The season opener was the Hardin Valley Academy Invitational. It featured 39 teams and 896 athletes.

Here are top 10 finishes for Oak Ridge girls:

Freshman Jada Guinn finished second in the high jump with a jump of 5’00”.
Freshman Kate Hausladen finished third in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 16.95.
Sophomore Brigid Bishop finished fifth in the pole vault with a jump of 8’00”.
Sophomore Robyn Wood was one of three girls in the high jump who finished in sixth, seventh, and eighth place with jumps of 4’6″.
Junior Kayla Summers finished seventh in the shot put with a distance of 29-05.00
Summers finished eighth in the discus throw with a distance of 82-03.
Sophomore Genevieve Schwartz finished 10th in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:34.51.

Here are top 10 finishes for Oak Ridge boys:

Freshman Jordan Graham finished fourth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.17.
Graham finished fifth in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.46.
Senior Tyler Boullie finished sixth in the 400-meter dash with a time of 51.95.
The 4×200-meter relay team—Caleb Downard, Graham, Jake Witt, and Jaeshawn Maddox—finished eighth in the 4×200-meter relay with a time of 1:36.96.
That same team finished ninth in the 4×100-meter relay with a time of 46.01.
The 4×800-meter relay team—Boullie, Thomas Colburn, Jacob Etheridge, and Jose Villegas—finished fifth with a time of 8:18.22.
That same team finished ninth in the 4×400-meter relay team with a time of 3:37.53.

Jordan Hardy did not compete in the long jump, triple jump, or sprints because he recently hurt his hamstring, Etheridge said. Tre Jackson also did not run.

Graham’s 23.17 run in the 200-meter dash was a personal record, Etheridge said.

“That’s a pretty good time for a freshman at the end of the year,” much less at the beginning of the year, Etheridge said.

He said Boullie’s time of 51.95 in the 400-meter dash was also a personal record.

The top three girls teams at the Hardin Valley Academy Invitational were Hardin Valley Academy, West High School, and Dobyns Bennett. The top three boys teams were Dobyns Bennett, Cookeville, and Sevier County.

View the meet results here. See more photos below and also here.

More information will be added as it becomes available.