by Jamie Harris
The Berkeley Springs High School track and field team sent ten athletes to Charleston this past weekend to compete in the Class AA State Track and Field Championships. It is a common theme in the spring that Berkeley Springs has multiple state place winners or even state champions at the state championships. While there was no state titles won this past weekend the Indians showed up and brought home numerous state place winners over the past two days of the event.
On Friday the Indians picked up their first two state medalists in the field events. Junior Dakota Hamrick finished in second place in the pole vault with a height of 13’00”. Hamrick had actually cleared 13’6” that could have possibly won the state title but an official review ruled the vault a scratch. Teammate Ettore Boscoe placed ninth in the pole vault with a height of 10’00” to just miss out on a top eight placement.
Sophomore Adrian Feliciano picked up his first state medal with an eighth place finish in the high jump. Feliciano cleared 5’ 10” to earn his state placement.
In the girl’s field events on Friday junior Jillian Fortney competed in the pole vault but did not place. Junior Stephanie Briscoe competed in the discus and did not place.
Junior Audrey Helmick finished in 10th place in the 3200 meters with a personal best time of 12:40.
Also on Friday senior Ben Golden qualified for the 200 meter finals with sixth place finish in the preliminaries.
On Saturday the Indians were ready to compete but rainy weather was going to challenge the Berkeley Springs athletes. Senior Jackson Mundey picked up another state medal for the Indians in the 400 meters with a time of 52.57 seconds to finish in seventh place. Mundey would then follow that up with a new school record in the 800 meters. Mundey finished in fourth place with a time of 1:57.82 to break the school record held by former standout Brady Price (1:58.64). The 800 meter finals had seven runners break the 2:00 mark which was very impressive.
Junior Audrey Helmick ran a strong 800 meter race but at the end of the race found out that she was disqualified for running inside the lane.
In the 200 meter finals Ben Golden who was not even predicted to place in the event finished in third place in the finals. Golden ran a 23.55 to pick up another state medal.
In the next to last event of the day the Indians 4×400 meter relay team of Ben Golden, Isaac Harris, Deven Stone and Jackson Mundey finished in eighth place with a time of 3:40 to capture yet another state medal for Berkeley Springs. It was Golden’s second state medal of the weekend, Mundey’ s third state medal of the week- end, and Harris and Stone’ s first all-state track honors. For Harris he became a double all-state athlete in his senior season with his state runner-up finish in wrestling and now the eighth place finish in the 4×400 meter relay.
photo by Beth Golden
As a team the Indians finished in 11th place in the team standings with 22.33 points. Berkeley Springs just missed a top ten finish by two points.
Side note-Berkeley Springs was predicted to finish in 19th place by RunWV.
