County Track: Catoctin's Trammel making a name for himself

May 11—Furious Trammel was born to stand out.

For starters, his name is Furious, named after one of his parents' favorite characters, Jason "Furious" Styles, in one of their favorite movies, "Boyz n the Hood."

"I actually have some friends that didn't believe my name was Furious for like two years," the Catoctin High junior said. "Then, they were like, 'Oh my God, is it actually Furious?'"

Trammel is also seriously fast, running some of the top times in the state in multiple events.

In Thursday's Frederick County Public Schools track and field championships at Thomas Johnson High School, Trammel broke the county meet record in the 400-meter dash that was set by another Catoctin standout, Deven Patterson, in 2010 (48.86 seconds) with a time of 48.75.

"Freakin' awesome, man," Catoctin coach Dave Lillard said. "That's a hard record [to get], and the fact that it goes from Catoctin to Catoctin is awesome, too."

But when you are teammates with a national-caliber sprinter like Brody Buffington, who commands attention and headlines, standing out can be a challenge for Trammel and his teammates.

For better or worse, they tend to operate in his shadow.

Buffington, a senior, smashed county records Thursday in both the 100-meter dash (10.46 seconds) and the 200 dash (20.59 seconds), the latter being a personal-best, wiping away the 20.8 he ran at his home meet almost two weeks ago.

"I get appreciation from all my peer runners out there, and they all treat me like I was a Brody," Trammel said. "Cause Brody is tops in the nation right now, he deserves it. He works for it. I know my time will come. I am not trying to rush anything."

The time remained now for both the Urbana girls and Thomas Johnson boys track teams, who used their remarkable depth to continue their dominance from the indoor season and claim county team championships.

Urbana's girls nearly doubled up the field with a 169.5-point effort that netted them their eighth consecutive county outdoor team title, to go along with eight straight county indoor team titles.

The Hawks are now winning in different ways than they did back when this run started in 2015. Their sprinters are now leading the charge, as junior Aurianna Gladden won the 100 dash (14.99), senior Angeline Amefia won the 100 hurdles (14.99) and placed third in the 400 dash, and sophomore Divine Bamgboye pushed Tuscarora's double-champion Celeste Rodriguez-Aguilar (200, 400) down to the wire in the 200.

The Hawks also won the 4x100 and 4x200 relays.

"That's our strength. It's weird," longtime Urbana coach C.J. Ecalono said of the sprints. "The freshman and sophomore classes that came in the last couple of years, they were the strongest in the short sprints. We just developed the heck out of those handful of events, and we are starting to thrive now with them."

Meanwhile, the TJ boys used victories in a wide variety of events to generate 145 points, which was good for a comfortable victory over Urbana (114) and Frederick (95).

Junior distance runner James Partlow won the 1,600 (a personal-best 4:22.72) and 3,200 (9:59.58) runs. Junior Luke Freimanis won the 110 hurdles with a personal-best time of 14.96 seconds. Junior Ryan Kengni won the high jump with a personal-best leap of 6 feet, 4 inches. Sophomore Gilberto Ramos won the pole vault (12-6) for the Patriots, who will take aim at the state team title in two weeks.

"Coming off of indoor, we won [the Central Maryland Conference], we won counties, we crazily won regionals out of nowhere, by one point, it was awesome," Partlow said. "Coming off of that, we placed third at states, and we were all pretty bummed. So, we all said, outdoor. Outdoor is it. We are going for the state title because we know we can do it."

In a showdown of multi-time state champions in the girls pole vault, Middletown's Ava Allen bested TJ's Elisa Ramos with fewer misses over the course of the event.

Both girls cleared 12 feet, the winning height, before missing at 12-6 on three attempts. But Allen, a junior, had two fewer misses over the course of the event than Ramos, a senior. So, she was crowned champion less than three weeks after severely spraining her ankle while pole vaulting in a meet, the result of a bad landing.

"It's just fun because when we go to regionals and states, we are not against each other," Allen said of Ramos. "So, this and CMCs are the only meets where we jump against each other. It's just for fun, really."

Trammel is looking to make a name for himself over the next two weeks at regionals at states. He is scheduled for the 100, 400, long jump and triple jump at regionals.

Like Buffington, he has become a standout performer in just his second season of track and field.

He originally played football at Catoctin, and was discovered by former Catoctin track coach Lois Strickland, who observed the tall and athletic Trammel running up and down a steep hill behind the school's stadium in flip flops because he forgot something after practice.

"She was like, 'Man, that boy can run,'" Trammel said of Strickland.

Now Trammel is carving out a real identity for himself, even as he still operates largely in Buffington's shadow.

"I want it to be a shadow," he said. "I want to pop out of nowhere and be some phenomenon."

Trammel also said, "Running has always made me happy. It's my tranquil place where I can just feel like it's nothing but me. Everything else is just gone."

County Champions

Boys

100: Brody Buffington, Catoctin, 10.46—

200: Brody Buffington, Catoctin, 20.59—

400: Furious Trammel, Catoctin, 48.75—

800: Sam Skinner, Oakdale, 1:58.25

1,600: James Partlow, Thomas Johnson, 4:22.72

3,200: James Partlow, Thomas Johnson, 9:59.58

110 hurdles: Luke Freimanis, Thomas Johnson, 14.96

300 hurdles: Shelton Davis, Urbana, 39.10

4x100 relay: Urbana (Ishola Odegbile, Kean Tanyi-Tang, Jordan Sofon, Juan Carlos Barberena), 43.93

4x200 relay: Frederick (Newton Essiem, Nashon McKinney-Spear, Tyrico Morgan Jr., Reginald Snowden), 1:29.38

4x400 relay: Urbana (Shelton Davis, Jordan Sofon, Kean Tanyi-Tang, Juan Carlos Barberena), 3:21.51

4x800 relay: Urbana (Markcus Hobson-Garcia, Korey Kauflin, Collin Patterson, Anthony Verdi), 8:14.07

High jump: Ryan Kengni, Thomas Johnson, 6-4

Long jump: Nashon McKinney-Spear, Frederick, 21-11.25

Triple jump: Nanjo Levec, Middeltown, 43-11

Pole vault: Gilberto Ramos, Thomas Johnson, 12-6

Shot put: Grant Lohr, Oakdale, 47-2.75

Discus: Logan Rich, Linganore, 152-5

----Denotes county meet record

Girls

100: Aurianna Gladden, Urbana, 14.99

200: Celeste Rodriguez-Aguilar, Tuscarora, 25.63

400: Celeste Rodriguez-Aguilar, Tuscarora, 57.32

800: Hayley Lucido, Middletown, 2:25.08

1,600: Erin McQuitty, Middletown, 5:17.99

3,200: Anna Quackenbush, Linganore, 11:32.19

100 hurdles: Angeline Amefia, Urbana, 14.99

300 hurdles: Elly Gill, Oakdale, 46.08

4x100 relay: Urbana (Aurianna Gladden, Divine Bamgboye, Angeline Amefia, Ava Duerr), 48.27

4x200 relay: Urbana (Haley Smith, Janine Amefia, Cameron Vu, Keira Mistry), 1:45.81

4x400 relay: Tuscarora (Jeanell Stemn, Nina Connors, Jennifer Attia, Celeste Rodriguez-Aguilar), 4:10.26

4x800 relay: Linganore (Morgan Roberts, Haylie Keegan, Audrey Meadows, Anna Quackenbush), 9:47.79

High jump: Julianna Nardini, Linganore, 5-2

Long jump: Felicia Siewe, Urbana, 17-7.5

Triple jump: Elisa Ramos, Thomas Johnson, 36-0

Pole vault: Ava Allen, Middletown, 12-0

Shot put: Samantha Heyison, Urbana, 36-3.75

Discus: Samantha Heyison, Urbana, 111-9

Follow Greg Swatek on Twitter: @greg_swatek