AAA State Meet Day 1 Highlights

All photos below by John Herzog

Rain, wind, injuries, and scratches affected the first day of the AAA State Meet. Queen Harrison was an expected scratch from the meet after her injury suffered at Central Region Meet. Francena McCorory joined her on ending her high school career early as her hamstring injury will be forcing her to shut down racing for the entire summer. An unexpected scratch and injury was learned by the athlete that looked to be the next in line to take over McCorory\'s role in the Peninsula District, Eastern Region, and AAA State Meet as the most dominating sprinter in Woodside sophomore Dominique Jordan, who injured herself in a dance performance on Thursday. The meet also had to lag through a weather delay of 50 minutes, which forced the 400 meter qualifying heats to be cut out of Friday\'s portion of the meet to be moved to Saturday as finals only sections. Despite the injuries and weather, many things did go right on Friday.


The two lone running event finals on Friday saw some outstanding races with the Lake Braddock girls getting that elusive 4x800 meter relay state title with a close 9:15 victory over Westfield at 9:17.


The Colonial Forge boys solid depth on all four legs allowed them to run away with a winning time of 7:46 from the rest of the 4x800 meter relay field that featured teams with one or two studs such as Hermitage and Herndon having two 1:51 legs from Alex Bowman and Abe Daganchew.


Future Norfolk State University teammates Marlon Woods of Booker T. Washington and Corey Vinston traded wins in the jumps on Friday with Woods winning his second high jump state title at a personal best height of 6\'10\", while Vinston was not far off his best in the long jump with a 24\'9\" mark.


Only five inches separated the top five finishers in the long jump as Woodbridge\'s Brittni Dixon was a surprise winner in the event with a mark of 18\'9\". Kathy Howard of Lee-Davis successfully defending her shot put state title with a mark of 41\'6\".


Massaponax\'s Dominique Smith made the discus competiton closer than expected with a best throw of 17\'1\" as top seed and state leader Mike Zajac hit 175\'4\" in the event to win his first state title in the event.


Chantilly senior Nicole Kazuba earned a second state title in the pole vault with 11\'6 clearance.

Fastest times in the prelims included Cierra McGee in the girls 200 meter dash (24.65), Tierra Brown in the girls 110 meter hurdles (14.15), Nicole Saunders in the girls 300 meter hurdles (41.94), Courtland Marriner in the 200 meter dash (21.68),Chris Bell in the boys 100 meter hurdles (14.08), Oliver Alexander in the boys 100 meter dash (10.76), and Corey Vinston in the 300 meter hurdles (38.26)