By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

MOUNTAIN BROOK – April 24-25 marked the weekend for track and field sectionals all across the state. All 7A schools in Shelby County, along with 6A Briarwood, participated in the sectional meet at Mountain Brook High School. The Briarwood girls’ team placed seventh while the boys placed ninth in the 6A meet. In 7A, Thompson placed third in the boys meet and the girls meet to lead all county schools, Spain Park placed fourth in the boys meet and seventh in the girls meet, while Oak Mountain placed sixth in the boys meet and fifth in the girls meet.

There were three individual scorers for the Briarwood boys, Daniel Johnston, who placed third in the discus, and Cayman Frederick and Tyler Bruce, who placed third and fourth, respectively, in the pole vault. For the Lady Lions, Madison Kimel placed second in the pole vault, Sarah Adcock placed fifth in the 1600-meter run, Sophie Muir-Taylor placed eighth in the 100-meter hurdles, and Ashley and Lauren Musachia placed seventh and eighth in the high jump to round out the Briarwood girls individual scorers.

A plethora of Thompson athletes scored points on both the boys and girls side. Patrick Haywood placed second in the 100-meter dash, and was .004 seconds off of first place. Haywood also placed third in the 200-meter dash as well. Emmanuel Tait and Craig Clark placed first and third in the 110-meter hurdles, respectively, while Tait also won the 300-meter hurdles as well. Viktor Turek placed second in the discus to round out the top-three finishers for Thompson at the meet.

For the girls, Sarah Owen and Constance McKnight were the only two top-three individual finishers for Thompson, finishing second and third in the shot put. Owen also finished fourth in the discus while McKnight finished seventh in the event. Katelyn Bowles finished fourth in the 100-meter hurdles, Rebecca Harrell finished fourth in the 300-meter hurdles and Lauryn Dancy finished fourth in the 100-meter dash as well for Thompson.

Elsewhere in the 7A girls meet, Nicole Payne of Oak Mountain won the 400-meter dash with a time of 56.74, Evie Bell of Oak Mountain finished third in the 3,200-meter run and Kaleigh Carney finished second in the high jump for Spain Park to round out the top female individual competitors.

In the boys meet, Daniel Nixon placed second in the 800-meter run for Spain Park, Cole Stidfole of Oak Mountain placed second in the 1,600 meter run, missing first place by .003 seconds with a time of 4:20.979, Stidfole also won the 3,200-meter run by almost nine seconds. Christian Strong of Spain Park placed second in the 110-meter hurdles, Jeff Bannon of Spain Park placed third in pole vault, Jerome Kirkland of Spain Park placed second in the long jump, Brayden Pierce of Spain Park won the triple jump, Payton Youngblood of Oak Mountain placed second in the javelin throw and Stonewall Ingram of Spain Park placed third in the javelin throw to round out the top boys performers in the county.

A full list of state qualifiers will be available later this week.