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By LIZZIE BOWEN | Staff Writer

PELHAM – Will and Mariah McGough are two sibling breakout athletes at Pelham, seeing great success in track. Mariah runs at Pelham Park Middle School and Will at Pelham High School.

Mariah competes in 100m, 200m and 4X100m. She has placed first in every meet this year and holds the top time in the state for the 100m and second in the state for the 200m.

Will has finished top 3 in every meet this year for the 100m and 200m. As an 11th grader, he has one of the top times in the state.

“They’ve always been very close and very competitive with each other,” Father Chris Brazelton said.

Mariah first came to Pelham when she was in the second grade, and Will came in the fifth grade. Brazelton said Will began playing football in the fifth grade in little league while in Montgomery.

“It was really odd and funny because at the end of football practice the fifth graders would run sprints,” Brazelton said. “She would get out there and run with the boys and beat them. It would be so funny; her little legs would be running.”

Will has been playing football ever since, and since joining the Pelham High School football team, he has endured two shoulder surgeries.

“I always thought Will was a football player that ran track because of his size and build,” Brazelton said. “But he is showing a lot more interest in track than football, so I just changed this year said, ‘He is a track player who plays football.’ Mariah began running track when she could in seventh grade.”

Brazelton said both Will and Mariah began running track when they were in the seventh grade. Mariah currently sits at number two in the 200m race.

“As far-fetched as it is, with the proper training I think those guys are on the way to the Olympics,” Brazelton said. “It has been amazing. They have earned and deserved what they have. When they finish practice every day, they run hills after practice off of Pelham Parkway. I told them that’s why they’re successful because I bet nobody is working as hard as they are.”

Brazelton said he expects Will to be state champion by his senior year as no one has beaten him in his grade level in 6A. Mariah currently is staying on the middle school track team as opposed to going onto varsity.

“She chose to run in middle school,” Brazelton said. “But after the middle school season, she will go and run with the varsity.”

It was work that brought Brazelton from Montgomery to Pelham, but he is glad that it did as he has watched his two children achieve great feats athletically in the Pelham School System.

Mariah and Will continue to see success as the season continues, and the future is looking bright for the two young athletes. Above all else, Brazelton is a proud father of the two athletes.