18 Seahawks Will Compete at State Track Meet

The Northern Region Champion girls 4x400 team of junior Grace Gillen, freshman Golden Kumi-Darfour and sophomores Claire Nieusma and Delaney Wickman will lead the South Lakes High School track and field team at the VHSL State Outdoor Championship Friday and Saturday in Newport News.

The foursome are among 18 SLHS athletes who qualified for the state meet at last weekend’s Northern Region Championship at Robinson High School or met a state qualifying standard during the outdoor season.

The girls won the 4x400 in a season-best time of 3:57.72, giving SLHS representation in all three relays. Sophomores Ozioma Chinaka, Jordan Lozama and juniors Kristin Tran and Danielle Hale finished third in the 4x100 with a 49.91 at the Region meet. The 4x800 team of juniors Gillen, Abby Reinhold, sophomore Augusta Durham and freshman Monica Lannen achieved the state standard earlier this season.

Senior Michael McHugh and junior Luis Rivas will have triple duty at states, competing in the 800 meters and 4x400 and 4x800 meter relays. McHugh finished second in the 800 (1:54.57) and teamed with Rivas (4th in the 800, 1:58.11) and juniors Michael Kerr and Daniel Johnsen in the 4x400 for second in the Region meet with a 3:23.54. As with the girls’ 4x800, the boys’ team of McHugh, Rivas, Kerr and senior Ashkan Mohammadi ran a state-qualifying standard at the beginning of the season.

Individual performances at state will include:

*Wickman in the 400 (2nd in Region, 56.32 finals, 56.20 preliminaries) and 200 (state standard)

*Kumi-Darfour in the 400 (4th in Region, 59.02 finals, 58.92 prelims)

*Hale in the triple jump (state standard)

*Maya Rodriguez in 300 hurdles (5th in Region, 46.84 finals, 46.13 prelims)

*Mohammadi in the 1,600 meters (4th in Region, 4:23.26)

Last weekend’s meet was the final Northern Region Championship. The Virginia High School League is going from three classifications (A, AA, AAA) to six next school year. Instead of districts and regionals, there will be conferences, sectionals and then states.

The SLHS girls’ team that won the final Liberty District earlier this month, finished sixth out of 30 teams in the Northern Region meet. The SLHS boys finished 10th.

Along with those competing in the state meet, the following received All-Region honors:

*Lannen, Reinhold, Durham and sophomore Sydney Crutcher in the girls’ 4x800 (5th, 9:53.31)

*Lannen in the 1,600 (8th, 5:16.80)

*Rodriguez in the 100 hurdles (7th, 16.46)

*Johnsen in 400 (7th, 51.16)

Other SLHS performances from Northern Region meet: Hale (16-02.00) and Tran (15-08.75) in the long jump (16-02.00); Lozama in 100 meters (12.78); Lozama (26.32) and Chinaka (27.33) in the 200; Gillen in 400 (59.63); Durham in 800 (2:25.66); senior Elias Ingea (11.21) and junior Aeron Thai (11.55) in 100 (11.21); Elias in the 200 (23.23); sophomore Andrew McCool in 1,600 (4:44.79) and senior Raj Pilaka in 110 hurdles (15.48).

  ---- Submitted by Valerie Lister

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