The 2010 VISAA State Championships was arguably one of the best in recent meet history in terms of producing some of the state's top performances of the outdoor season.
All photos by John Herzog
Liberty Christian Academy junior Cody Bingham led all performers with his new VA #1 clearance of 15'3" in the pole vault, which was one of 8 events total that the multi-event star competed during the day. Liberty Christian Academy had three of the top individuals in the meet with Bingham as well as Demitri Knowles and Dana Mercer.
The Bahamaian native Knowles sprinted to the state's second fastest 100 time behind only Darrell Wesh in a 10.65 meet record victory and notched another PR later in the 200 with a 21.47 clocking. Mercer, only a sophomore, swept the horizontal jumps while picking up a win in the 100 meter dash and runner-up performance in the 200 meter dash.
Mercer finished second in the 200 finals to Hampton Roads Academy's Emmy Fraenk who broke two meet records in the 400 meter dash (57.33) and 200 (24.73). Taylor Clevinger was also a double winner on the track as the St. Catherine's junior pulled away for first place finishes in the 1600 (5:20) and 800 (2:18) meter races while also anchoring her 4x400 meter relay to victory and more importantly her team to a narrow state team title over Collegiate in a dramatic final event point swing for the first place trophy.
Episcopal had a limited team entered but still finished in the top 5 team standings thanks to two meet record breaking performances by Shantell Bingham in the 100 meter hurdles who ran faster in the prelims at 14.73, while Sarah Dillard won both throwing events including a new meet record mark of 122'11" in the discus.
VMI bound Cabell Willis of Collegiate won the 1600 meter with the state's fourth fastest performance behind only the big three of Kostelac, Mearns, and Paisley from Penn Relays with an eight second PR time of 4:12.17 to lead three under 4:20. Willis later came back to win the 3200 meter run as well in 9:31. Willis has made remarkable improvements in just over a year for a runner who was running over 4:30 mostly as a junior in the 1600 meter run to become of the state's top distance runners this spring at the 1600 and 3200 distance.
Woodberry Forest has one of the state's best throwers in both the shot and discus in Jan Jeuschede, who proved to be the class of the field in both events with winning tosses of 162'6" in the discus and 54'0" in the shot put respectively.
Fork Union boys now can begin another 20 year streak of state team titles as they came back as team champions in 2010 following St. Christopher's snapping their long-standing streak in 2009. It took a team effort with a collection of individuals and relays as they were shut out from having any individual champions, but did set a new meet record of 42.24 in the 4x100 meter relay which ranks third fastest in the state of Virginia.
More coverage from the VISAA State Championships including photo gallery by John Herzog, race videos by Brandon Miles and interviews from some of the top individuals from the meet.
VISAA State Championships Results: Boys Results - Girls Results
Below are the performances entered for the meet that met the national silver standard.
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National Elites.
