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School Sports
Championship a disaster for Demons By Michael Lindsay | Daily Times Staff Writer GREENSBORO -- It ended up being a comedy of errors for the Fike boys track team, and nobody was laughing. The Golden Demons suffered through a litany of errors -- everything from a runner with the wrong spikes to a key disqualification -- and finished with just one team point during Friday's N.C. High School Athletic Association 3-A Track & Field State Championship Meet at Irwin Belk Track on the campus of N.C. A&T State University. "It was just one of those days," senior Josh Foster said. "Everyone has them. Ours just happened on the worst day possible." The day started out decently enough for Fike, which had high hopes all of its competitors. The Golden Demons 4x800-meter relay team of Auston Jones, Stephen Ewan, Cody Jones and Joseph Speight ran its best time of the season: an 8:22 to finish ninth. But when Foster in the triple jump and Darrus Parker in the long jump exited before the finals, the Golden Demons' fortunes began to turn sour, for which head coach Tom Griffith took the burden. "We had a lot of things happen that you normally do not see in a meet," Griffith said, obviously disappointed. "I could go over the whole list of errors we had, but ultimately the head coach has to take responsibility to have the team ready to perform. My team wasn't ready to perform, for whatever reason." Senior Kevin Smith ran a smooth 400-meter preliminary, finishing fourth. But when the finals began later in the afternoon, his lane on the outside portion of the track was empty. Still stretching with an assistant coach over by the check-in tent, Smith missed that race and was therefore was disqualified for the 4x400 relay, the final race of the afternoon. "I hate to go out this way, but I guess everything happens for a reason." Smith, who signed to compete with Wake Forest next season, was in shock of what had just happened to him. To finally reach the state championship as a senior, race well in the preliminaries and then have it literally race by him was nearly devastating. "I worked four years to get here, and I get here and to have it end like that ... ," he said trailing off. "But I've got bigger meets ahead." Through the afternoon, FIke's hopes faded slowly, coming through with solid middle-of the-road finishes, but never breaking out like it'd hoped. The relay team of Keith Blunt, Zameze Braswell, Michael Farr and Dajuan Lucas finished fourth in the first heat of the 4x100 but outside the top 10 overall with a time of 43.81 seconds. Without Smith in the 4x400, the team of Foster, Ewan, Parker and Jones came in eighth in the second heat in 3:34.43. "We just had too many things go wrong," Griffith said. Hunt's Jonas Dewald just edged Speight for 12th in the 800,2:03.86 to 2:03.89. For Dewald, it capped a gutsy comeback from a stress fracture in his tibia suffered Feb. 9 in the state indoor meet. He ran in only four of the teams 11 meets, including the conference championship, and had been limited to really only two weeks of practice. "To have only two weeks training and wind up 12th in the state, it's not too bad," Warriors head coach Sonny West said. And after running one of his poorer races in last year's state meet, Dewald pleased to return for another shot during his final meet, even in spite of his injury. "I was extremely happy with the way I finished," Dewald said. "I've just been working to get my times down, and to come back and do it in the states, it's just really gratifying to come back from a bad finish last year and do well this year." Allison Ray, Hunt's discus thrower, missed on her attempts -- her final one by a matter of just a few inches. But West was looking forward to how it will help her toward returning next year as a senior. "If her last throw had been in, she would've made the finals," West said. " The biggest thing was the experience, and she'll be here next year -- and hopefully in two events with the grapple, too." SouthWest Edgecome's Denise Harrison highlighted other area competitors with a seventh-place finish in the discus, tossing 105 feet. Ny'Neka Euwell finished ninth in the long jump, reaching a distance of 16-4. Charles B. Aycock's Cameron George also placed in the top 10, finishing in eighth place in the pole vault with a height of 11 feet. For Southern Nash, triple jumper Mike Jones finished with 41-101/2, good for 15th in the state, while Dominica Coleman finished 11th at 34-81/2, also in the triple jump. Distance runner Miranda Johnson took 14th at 5:44.07 in the mile run. mlindsay@wilsontimes.com | 265-7807
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