The Edwardsville Tigers, John Burroughs Bombers and Rockwood Summit Falcons all brought home state championships last weekend.
Edwardsville won the Illinois Class 3A state championship for the second time in three years last weekend in Charleston. The Tigers’ edged Southwestern Conference rival East St. Louis with 42 points, three more than the Flyers.
Senior A.J. Epenesa capped his brilliant high school career by winning the discus with a throw of 197 feet 11 inches. Travis Anderson swept the 110-meter high hurdles and 300-meter intermediate hurdles. His winning times were 13.79 in the 110-meter high hurdles and 37.83 in the intermediate hurdles.
The highlight for East St. Louis was its first-place performance in the 4×400-meter relay as the team of Deonte Anderson, Reyondus Estes, Willie Johnson and Joshua Tolton posted a winning time of 3 minutes 14.76 seconds. Senior Chris Conrad of O’Fallon won the 800-meter run with a brilliant time of 1 minute 49.9 seconds.
John Burroughs won the Missouri Class 3 state championship with 62 points, edging second-place Reeds Spring by two points. Freshman phenom Brandon Miller won the 800 in a near state-record time of 1:50.84. Teammate John Henry Wagner was second to Miller. Miller, Wagner, Liam Donovan and Diego Santa Cruz won the 4×800-meter relay in 8:00.25. Miller, Wagner, Xavier Miller and Luke Lamb won the 4×200 in 1:27.65. Miller, Wagner, Jake Bain and Luke Lamb won the 4×400 in 3:20.01 to clinch the state title on the last event.
Rockwood Summit won the Class 4 state championship with 53 points, edging Parkway North, who finished second with 48 points. Star senior Rayvon Allen led Summit to the state title with his dominant performance in the jumps. Allen won the triple jump with an effort of 50 feet 4 ½ inches and the long jump with a leap of 24-0 ¼. Bryce Edwards won the shot put with a heave of 55-11 ¾. Allen also finished fourth in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles and joined La’Darius Reed, Jacob Brunsman and Daniel Hopkins to win the 4×400-meter relay to clinch the state title.
Parkway North was led by its strong crew of hurdlers as Jalani Williams won the 110-meter high hurdles in 14.26 while Jakeel Suber was second with 14.37. Suber came back to win the 300-meter intermediate hurdles while David Buckner finished in seventh place.
Senior Austin Hindman of Lafayette finished a stellar career with a spectacular performance at the Class 5 state meet. Hindman won the 800 in 1:55.0, the 1,600 in a Class 5 record time of 4:09.69 and the 3,200 in an all-class record time of 8:54.92. Hindman also anchored the Lancers’ 4×800-meter relay team to a state title.
Other boys’ highlights from the state meet include:
*Kamryn Babb of CBC won the Class 5 long jump with a leap of 23-4.
*CBC’s 4×100 relay team of Austin Malden, Brandon Douglas, Cameron Brown and Babb won the state title in 41.68.
*Lamont Allen of DeSoto won the Class 4 high jump with by clearing 6’10.
*Deric Purcell of Union won the Class 4 100- and 200-meter dashes.
*Corey Carter of Principia won the Class 3 100-meter dash.
*Jameson Williams of Cardinal Ritter won the Class 3 300-meter intermediate hurdles in 37.28.
