Boy's 4A State Championship
The boy's 55mHH and 55m dash kicked it off with each running their prelims. Johnny Dutch and Trenton Guy Jr. did exactly what was expected of them as both qualified with the top times and both ran very fast. Johnny Dutch of Clayton ran 7.16 in his heat while Guy Jr. of West Charlotte ran 6.32 to qualify in the 55m dash.
In the boy's 55m dash, there was something missing, it was someone fast . . . Edward Alexander of West Charlotte, the #3 sprinter in the nation wasn't there. However, they still had the #1 sprinter in the nation in Trenton Guy Jr., so they looked to be okay.
There was a bit of a problem as the finalists lined up at the start, it seemed Kelvin Hardesty of New Bern, who had qualified with a very fast 6.41 wasn't going to be allowed to run. An issue came up during the meet that some athletes weren't wearing the correct spikes for the indoor surface. Meet officials noticed that Kelvin had a "Christmas Tree" spikes and those were deemed "illegal" for this surface at the Eddie Smith Field House. The meet director had announced earlier there would be consequences, and sure enough, Kelvin was DQ'd from the event. This moved Samuel Jordan of Laney into the finals. This entire situation took about 10 minutes to settle. Finally, after a lot of standing around, the 55m dash began and then in 6.35 seconds . . . Guy Jr. was your state champion. Chris Culliver of Garner placed 2nd in a very respectable time of 6.45 with Kenneth Brooks of Riverside, only a 10th grader, running 6.46 for 3rd.
The 55mHH didn't have near the drama that the 55m dash did, it simply had one VERY fast hurdler. Johnny Dutch, who set a national record on this very track in January, was looking at breaking his own record. His attempt fell just short, but he still clocked his 2nd fastest time ever, 7.11. In a impressive race for 2nd place, Southeast Raleigh's Wayne Davis, only a sophomore, ran 7.32. This 15 year old is now the #4 ranked 55mHH ever to run in North Carolina. Could he be the next Johnny Dutch?
The 300m dash saw the nation's #2, Trenton Guy Jr. run away with the title. He ran 34.62 setting a new state meet record. Aaron Anderson of Douglas Byrd finished in 2nd with a time of 35.37. I honestly didn't have him on my radar, so props to him. East Chapel Hill's Antonio Sales who had run 35.07 early this year finished in 3rd with a time of 35.39. The 500 was an exciting race as most assumed it would be. In this race there were 5 of the top 11 All-Time NC best performers so something exciting was bound to happen. Anthony Hendrix led for most of the way in the final heat until 
the final turn when Lamarr Davis zipped around him for the win. Lamarr's time of 1:04.05 is the 4th best on the All-Time NC list and ranks him #2 in the country right now. Anthony's run wasn't without reward either. His time of 1:04.72 is #3 in the US and 6th All-Time in NC. Anthony's brother, Andrew, finished 3rd out of the 3rd heat running 1:06.83. Both brother's are only sophomores.
I'm not going to lie to you, the boy's 1600 was uneventful. Dakota Lowery of West Johnston has run 4:19 this season and the next fastest competitor in the event was Alex Wiggan who had run 4:31 . . . not to mention there were only 5 boys running. Other NC top milers decided to focus on other events instead of the 1600, so it turned it into . . . well a 5 person race that was won in 4:28. Dakota led start to finish as expected, but the pace wasn't fast. He threw down a 30 second last 200 meters to win. Alex Wiggan stuck tight onto Dakota as he moved to run 4:31 and sophomore Zak Roshdy of Green Hope ran a PR of 4:31 as well. The race that saw two of the state's featured milers was the 1000m run. Dylan Ferris had run 2:30.91 already this season and John Curtiss had run 2:35. The race was much closer than that as Curtiss matched Ferris until the last 120m or so. Ferris ran 2:33.29 for the win and Curtiss ran 2:34.13 to move him into 8th all time. His time also broke Brandon Jones Mecklenburg County record. Logan Roberts ran 2:36.55 for 3rd place holding off Ryan Stultz of South Caldwell.
The 3200m run was pretty solid as there was a pack of about 8 together until about 1000m to go. Greg Dame took off and gapped the field and it all began to spread out a bit. It left Lowery, Sam Mordecai of Broughton, Andy Wacker of Pinecrest, and Ross Hughes of Myers Park battling for 2nd. It looked as if Dame was runnig strong and would be able to hold on, but then Wacker broke away from the pack and began to chase him down. With 100m to go, Wacker passed Dame on the outside just as Dame was looking back. Andy went on to win in 9:38.44 which is impressive since he has been dealing with a stress fracture. Dame was 2nd in 9:41 and Mordecai 3rd in 9:45.
John Curtiss opened up a big lead on the lead off leg of the 4x800 which was too much for any other team to contend with. Curtiss ran around 1:57.00, give or take a few tenths, while the other teams were left in his dust back around 2:05. The next 3 runners for Providence, Kyle Davison, Miles Walker, and Alex Taylor all ran about 2:04/2:05 to give Providence a win in an impressive 8:10.15. New Bern finished in 2nd running 8:14.87 thanks to a big anchor leg from Anthony Hendrix. SE Raleigh began it's state title day with a 3rd place in 8:22.
Austin Davis of Northern Durham has the state leading triple jump of 47'11" and has been flirting with the 48' mark all season. He won the title, as expected, with a 47'3" mark, almost 3 feet better than 2nd place. Ashspon Forrest of Independence finished 2nd with his 44-6.5 mark. Austin Davis would've loved to take home titles in both horizontal jumps, but Mike Daniels of SE Raleigh spoiled that wish. Daniels won the LJ with a leap of 23'3.25". That jump is the 2nd best in NC this season. Davis was 2nd and Forrest finished 3rd.
The boy's HJ was won by Marcus Worthy of RJ Reynolds on misses. He and Chris Symonovicz of Watauga and Brandon Wiggins of BL Smith all cleared 6-2. All eight scorers jumped over 6' or better.
The boy's PV was exciting as Scott Houston of NW Guilford has been leading the state for most of the season. He won again, with a vault of 15-3. He is currently ranked #2 on the All-Time NC Indoor List. Michael Wilson of AC Reynolds had the next best height of 14-6. Maverick Miles of South Rowan, only a 9th grader, finished 3rd with a 14-00 vault.
The boy's shot put was a battle as 3 Mecklenburg County athletes were searching for the top spot. In the end, John 
Sabacinski of Myers Park threw 48-8.00 for the win. Not far behid him was Mark Blakeney of Vance with a throw of 48-1.50. Providence's Ben Kurti helped them place 2nd in the state with his 3rd place finish and 47-11.00 heave.
For the most part, the boy's 4x400 is for bragging rights. For Providence, it was huge as their 1st place gained them a team runner-up plaque. They didn't win the fast heat to do it either, they won section 3 of 4. West Charlotte and New Bern came in as the fastest teams on paper, but with a couple key individuals not running and a botched handoff by New Bern, Providence shot up for the win. They ran 3:30.74 while West Charlotte won the "fast heat" in 3:30.78. It doesn't get much closer than that.
Trenton Guy Jr. won the boy's MVP for his two new meet records in the 55m and 300m dashes.