Over the past few days we have seen numerous teams hoist the state team trophy above their head but for three teams, it was something they were used to. These three teams successfully defended their state team title.
On the girls' side there was just one team to successfully defend their title and that was James River (Midlothian) who won their second-straight Class 5 team title. They did so with an impressive 38 points from Lilly Ver Beek and another 20 individual points from Mckenzie Hadfield. Also scoring for the rapids was the 4x200m relay finishing 4th overall and Lee'ah Peck who finished 7th in the shot put.
Down at Liberty there were two repeat champions on the boys' side. First up were the Raiders from Atlee. They scored an impressive 54 points to hold off Jamestown and Blacksburg to win the Class 4 trophy.
Atlee's win was a textbook example of a team effort. They had no state champions and just one second place finish but despite that still won over some tough competition. The next best finishing team without a state winner was Churchland back in 9th place!
The Raiders victory came from eight individual scorers and two scoring relays. They picked up 7 points (13%) in the sprints, 14 points (26%) in the relays, 21 points (39%) in distance, and 12 points (22%) in field events. We could say it a thousand other ways, the point is this was a total team effort.
Finally that brings us to our final team who defended their title and that Bruton in Class 2. They scored an impressive 80 points to edge out Stuarts Draft. This marks their third state team title in four years with one runner-up trophy two years ago.
Though there were quite a few big scorers for Bruton, it was really a two star show between Jayden Curry (28 points) and Quinn Marcinek (24 points). They also got 10 points from Johnie Askew who won the 55m dash.