Mineral Wells Area News

By DAVID MAY

Special to Mineral Wells Area News

State champions in football. State champs in boys basketball. Now Class 1A boys state champions in track and field. Gordon High School’s athletics year keeps getting better.

Taking one of the largest contingents of athletes (13 qualifiers plus alternates) to compete in the Texas University Interscholastic League track and field meet this past weekend in Austin, Gordon’s boys finished first as a team in Class 1A with 83 total points – 41 more than the second-place team Rankin. The Lady Longhorns finished the meet third as a team with 42 cumulative points.

Medaling in four of his five events, Gordon sophomore Stryker Reed received Class 1A top male athlete honors while establishing state meet and personal best records. He won two individual gold medals and a silver medal.

Reed along with fellow sophomores Riley Reed, Brayden Walters and Asher Salinas won gold in the boys 4×400 relay, setting a new Class 1A state meet record with a time of 3:21.87.

The 4×200 relay team of Riley Reed, Kaden Crowe, Asher Salinas and Brayden Walters won gold with a winning time of 1:29.78, shattering the previous school-record time of 1:31.72 by nearly 2 seconds.

Stryker Reed set another state Class 1A record, taking gold in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 38.60 seconds. Reed also struck gold in the 100-meter boys hurdles with a new school-record time of 14.60 seconds.

Gordon freshman Gracie Lynn also set a new state record in girls Class 1A 300-meter hurdles with a time of 43.73 seconds. She also bested the previous school-best time of 45.51 set in 2009 by Amber Elkins.

The Longhorns mined silver in the boys and girls high jump events. Senior Caitlyn Parsons took second with a jump of 5 feet to clear the bar. Reed also won silver with his clearing leap of 6 feet, 2 inches.

Gordon girls Abigail Kirkpatrick, Ava Hawkins, Marley Jackson and Gracie Lain combined to take second and win silver medals in the 4×400 relay with a time of 4:07.82.

The Lady Longhorns 4×100-meter relay team of Payton Reed, Ava Hawkins, Kaylee Maldonado and Gracie Lynn broke their own school record of 51.06 seconds, good for fourth place in Austin.

Sophomore Riley Reed won gold in the boys 100-meter dash, finishing with an event-best time of 10.91.

Although he didn’t medal in the pole vault, Stryker Reed set a new personal record with a jump of 13 feet, 6 inches to take fourth place.

The Strawn High School boys took overall fifth place team honors. Alex Hughes won gold in the boys discus with a throw of 164 feet, 7 inches, with teammate Robert Freeman winning silver with a throw of 156 feet, 8 inches. Freeman brought home bronze in the boys shot put with a heave of 47 feet, 1.75 inches.

STRAWN & GRAFORD

Strawn’s Milly Hughes won silver in the girls discus throw with her second-place throw of 135 feet, 2 inches.

Graford’s Landon Cobb finished fifth in the 3200-meter run with a time of 10:07.52, and eighth in the 1600-meter run with a time of 4:40.50.