RICHMOND, VA -- Not too many surprises at the East Coast Invitational as teams and individuals already established as some of the best in the Central Region did not disappoint with their performances this weekend at the Arthur Ashe Center in Richmond. The Midlothian girls ruled the distance races and the Manchester boys dominated the sprints and relays. Meanwhile, the Matoaca pair of Shanneka Claiborne and Aramis Massenburg showed just why they are state leaders in their respective events.
It was not hard to differentiate Midlothian girls from the rest this past Saturday at the East Coast Invite. If you were watching a race 500 meters or longer, the race winners were all from the same school, Midlothian.
In the 500 meter dash, Midlothian junior Paige Johnston clocked a time of 1:22.40 to win the event by three seconds. Meanwhile, Samantha Dow was a five second winner in the 1000 meter run with a final time of 3:08.96.
Midlothian freshmen Leia Lautzenheiser topped her twin sister Kathleen 5:18 win for 1600 meters at the Ashe Center last month with a personal best 5:15.54 win on Saturday for a nine second victory.
The most surprising performance out of the Midlothian bunch came with freshmen Amy Witt clocking a time of 11:27.67 to win the 3200 meter run over pre-race favorite Susannah Piersol of Maggie Walker (11:35.81). More importantly, Witt qualified for state competition in the event, which is no easy task in the Ashe Center.
Almost all of the Midlothian distance girls competed in the 4x800 meter relay earlier in the meet in which they put on another impressive show to follow up their 1-2 performance in the event at CNU with their \"B\" team with another one as their \"A\" team won in 9:55 to set a new meet record, while their \"B\" team took second in 10:05.
Matoaca junior Shanneka Claiborne garnered two wins in the sprints on the Ashe surface as the state leader in the 55 meter dash blew away the competition in the event with a 7.19 clocking in the finals. A win in the 300 meter dash would be harder to come by with a returning state qualifier in Karis Crosby of Mills Godwin. However, Claiborne picked up the well earned win with a 43.09 clocking with Crosby in second at 44.02.
Matoaca\'s Aramis Massenburg continued his undefeated season in the 55 meter hurdles with another impressive performance and time as the state leader in the event finished not far off his season best with a 7.52 clocking to win by over half a second. Massenburg also cleared 6\'2\" to win the high jump and finished third in the triple jump and fifth in the long jump.
Manchester junior Antonio Miller bounced back on Saturday from a defeat last weekend at CNU to Kelvin Griffin of Western Branch as well as losing his state best to Griffin. Despite jumping without spikes, Miller reclaimed his state best in the event by leaping to an indoor personal best of 47\'11.25\". The jump ranks him fourth in the country as Griffin now finds himself ranked sixth in the U.S. from his 47\'8.50\" win at CNU. Miller\'s mark also was one of the few meet records on Saturday as he broke a 17 year old meet record of 47\'7.25\" from 1990.
Miller is only piece of a strong Manchester team that was in full force this weekend. Manchester senior Anthony Chesson rolled to two victories in the 55 (6.61) and 300 (37.55) meter dashes, while teammate Reggie Hill was right behind him second in the 300 meter dash at 38.08. The Lancers also picked up an impressive win in the 4x200 meter relay with one of the faster times at 1:37.57 in recent history at the Ashe Center in one of the toughest events to run fast in at the Ashe Center.
Louisa County sophomore Thomas Baker pulled off an impressive double in the distance races Saturday as he won the 1600 meter run in 4:41.63 and came back to run a personal best of 9:48.31 to win the 3200 meter run narrowly over James River\'s Charlie Schmitt (9:48.36) with only five hundredths of a second separating the two at the line.
With Blake DeChristopher from Clover Hill as a scratch from the shot put, Cody Mohn of Lee-Davis took advantange to win his second straight invitational in as many weekends with a throw of 52\'4\". Look for Mohn to challenge DeChristopher for the title at the Central Region Meet.
Lee-Davis teammate Robert Reynolds did not wait till championship season to score an upset as certainly his win over the fellow Capital District distance runner Ben Dejarnette (2:40.84) could be considered as one with his final time of 2:40.44. Dejarnette had been almost unbeatable within his district since last indoor season and his 4:27 win in the 1600 meter run at CNU was one of his most impressive track races. However, Reynolds turned the tables on him for at least one weekend.
Rachel Butler was Miss Multi-Events as always for Lee-Davis as she won three events during the meet. Butler won a 55 meter hurdles battle over Manchester\'s Alaina Hite (8.59) with a 8.53 clocking. The University of Nebraska recruit also won the long jump (17\'7.75\") and pole vault (9\'0\") competitions.
Hite also finished second in the high jump with a 5\'2\" clearance behind Matoaca\'s Mia Aghaji as the co-owner of the 5\'7\" meet record was unable to match her 2006 performance, but still won with a clearance of 5\'4\".
Outside of Miller\'s mark in the triple jump, J.R. Tucker\'s K\'Lynne Robinson had the performance of the meet in the field events as she threw over 40 feet for the first time ever with a personal best mark of 40\'2.25\" to win the even by five and a half feet.