At Tuesday's Cardinal District Indoor Championships, held outdoors with temperatures over 60 degrees on a seasonably warm day, Forest Park junior Mustaqeem Williams warmed the track up even more with his scorching times in the sprints. Williams clocked a jaw-dropping 6.09 fully automatic timed performance in the 55 meter dash, which is only a hundredth of a second off the high school indoor national record (albeit Williams time wouldn't qualify for a national record since it was an outdoor polar bear meet). Williams later came back to win the 300 meter dash in a personal best time of 33.86, which would also be a US #1 time if held indoors. Nonetheless, Williams will likely be the top seed in both events at the state meet with those times at his district meet. His third personal best performance of the day came in the long jump as he leaped out to a state leading season best mark of 23'1".
The Forest Park boys (211 pts) easily won the team title by a enormous margin of 142 points with Woodbridge (69 pts) as a distance runner-up. Their US #1 4x200 meter relay ran its third sub 1:30 time of the season in a 1:29.46 clocking. One of their relay legs in Ricky Morgan found himself in a great battle with Osbourn Park's Teague Peck in the 500 meter dash, which produced two of the state's three fastest times of the season with Morgan as the winner in 1:04.30 and Peck in second place at 1:04.51. If Forest Park is to win the state team title later next month at Boo Williams, their team may need a few points out of distance runner Andrew Gaiser to separate from the other team contenders. Gaiser looked in fine form for championship in a successful double victory in the 1600 (4:25.13) and 3200 (9:54.50) meter races.
It was not as much of a runaway team victory for the Osbourn Park girls as both Woodbridge (2nd, 127.50 pts) and Forest Park (3rd, 106 pts) were able to crest over 100 points as well. With 138 points, Osbourn Park girls were able to secure the final Cardinal District indoor track & field team title. Their distance squad keyed their championship run with a sweep of the distance events as Jessica Gray held off Forest Park's Allyson Bodmer in the 1000 meter run with a time of 3:10.87, while teammate Jillian Everly similarly handed Bodmer a second place finish in the 1600 meter run in a time of 5:15.70 earlier before winning her second district individual title later in the 3200 meter run with a 12:06.35 performance.
The girls 55 meter dash was a near dead heat between Osbourn Park's Kiana Hairston (7.29) and Alexys Taylor (7.30) as well as Forest Park's Ya Agyepong-Wiafe (7.29). Agyepong-Wiafe was able to break up the Osbourn Park pair in second place with Hairston as the district champion and the freshmen Taylor in third place. It was one of the few sprint events not dominated by the Woodbridge girls.
Woodbridge's Jewel Christian and Farrah Suber teammed up to dominate the 500 and 300 meter dash fields as they both won a district title each with Christian running personal bests for first in the 500 (1:16.05) and second in the 300 (40.68). Teammate Suber was right behind her in the 500 as the 1:16.71 runner-up and the district champion in the 300 with a 40.29 clocking. Woodbridge actually swept the first three places in the 300 with Suber, Christian, and Kady Badham (40.69).
Suber was the triple jump runner-up with a leap of 37'2", which was won by a huge 3 foot personal best improvement by C.D. Hylton's Ebony Owusu-Sampah in a state best mark of 39'8.75". Her mark would rank her #5 in the nation if performed indoors, but a big breakthrough regardless for last spring's fourth place finisher in the Northwest Region Championships. Teammate Hali Mcfadgen gave Hylton its second district champion on the day in the horizonal jumps with her winning mark of 17'8" in the long jump.
A swift 4x200 meter relay within the Cardinal District as four teams went 1:48 or faster as the Forest Park girls took the event in a season best time of 1:45.98, while Woodbridge did not load up their squad in third place at 1:47.95 as they are the current state leaders at 1:43.92.