Lowndes girls track & field wins state championship

May 19—VALDOSTA — For the first time in school history, the Lowndes girls track and field team is a state champion.

The Vikings (83 points) took first place at the GHSA Track & Field State Meet in Powder Springs May 14. Hillgrove (60.50), Cherokee (51), McEachern (51) and Brookwood (50) rounded out the top five.

With the win, Lowndes becomes the first non-metro Atlanta team to win in the highest girls classification since Northeast (Macon) in 2000.

"This has been a goal of ours for a long time," Lowndes girls track and field coach Joseph Robinson said. "For the kids to finally achieve that goal, it feels really awesome. The kids are still smiling today and just really excited. I talked to a couple of them today and they still can't believe that it actually happened. It just doesn't feel real because of how difficult it is to do."

Ariyah Davis won the state championship in the high jump followed by teammate Trinity Hunter in second place.

Florida State commit Kaniya Johnson swept the 100 and 200 meter dash state championships. Johnson set a new state record in the 100 meter at 11.26 seconds — good for the third-fastest time in the nation. Johnson ran the 200 meter dash in 23.20 seconds; the seventh-fastest time in the nation.

Johnson, who transferred to Lowndes from White Knoll High School in South Carolina last November, proved to be the missing piece for the Vikings to reach their ultimate goal after an encouraging finish in last year's state meet.

"We made a lot of noise at the state track meet last year," Robinson said. "Once Kaniya came to the school and I saw what type of athlete she was, I knew that was exactly what we needed to get over. We were pretty fast last year. We scored a lot of points, but we were just missing that one extra person to put us over. When she came to Lowndes — luckily her parents were military — that gave us that extra nudge we needed to accrue the points to win the state championship.

"Her leadership and everything that came with her — her knowledge, her drive; she wants to practice all the time. It made everybody better because they had an elite athlete in practice every day and it pushed everybody else to be better."

The Vikings took first in the 4x100 relay as well as the team of Kadreon Thomas, Johnson, Kenyere Walden and Kaylan McConnehead set a school-record time of 45.93 seconds — the seventh-fastest time in the nation in the event.

The team of Johnson, McConnehead, Trinity Hunter and My'Asia Howard won the state championship in the 4x400 relay with a state-record time 3:43:29 — the second-fastest time in the nation.

The Lowndes boys finished 10th with 27 points, but were able to win the state championship in the 4x100 relay as the team of Jacarre Fleming, Michael Eady, Keylan Hicks and Tydreke Thomas recorded a school-record time of 40.78 seconds. The time now stands as the 14th fastest in the nation.

"The boys did really well," Robinson said. "They broke the school record in the 4x100 relay — actually almost broke the state record. It was amazing at the state track meet to see the boys and the girls both win the 4x100 relay. I know since I've been coaching track and Coach (Terry) Quinn, we've never had a 4x100 relay team to win state, period. To have both of them to win, it was a really huge deal.

"We were all jumping up and high-fiving each other because that rarely happens in any classification. It was really exciting. The boys were actually out there in the middle of the field crying because they were so emotionally charged up. Everybody just really enjoyed it and everybody worked extremely hard."

In addition to the state championship wins, the Vikings had several athletes finish well in several events. McConnehead finished sixth in the long jump. O'Shea Brooks finished eighth in the discus throw. Joseph Robinson finished sixth in the triple jump while My'Asia Howard took seventh in the event for the girls.

Tydreke Thomas (10.58) and Michael Eady (10.82) finished third and eighth respectively in the 100 meter dash. Thomas (22.20) took seventh in the 200 meter dash.

In the girls 300 meter hurdles, Kadreon Thomas finished fourth with a time of 44.64.

In the girls 4x200 relay, the team of Liberty Bell, Taleyah Belcher, Trinity Hunter and My'Asia Howard finished fourth with a time of 1:42.48.

On the boys side, Jabari Rowe, Malik Lane, Aiden Paterson and Scotty Holmes finished seventh with a time of 1:32.33 in the 4x200.

Th Lowndes track program also finishes the 2022 season with their eighth consecutive Region 1-7A championship.

"We really did it for all of south Georgia," Robinson said of the girls winning state. "We know we go to Lowndes, but we know below Atlanta when it comes to track and field, no one thinks about it. We wanted to make sure we put south Georgia back on the map when it came to track and field."

Shane Thomas is the sports editor at the Valdosta Daily Times.