From The East Side:
By Maurice Scott Jr.
Special to the American
In 2005, the East St. Louis Flyers under classy head coach Roscoe Whitfield, won the IHSA Class AA state title. Meanwhile the young Cahokia Comanche thinclads looked on while standing on the third-place podium. The Comanches were proud, but determined to stand atop the championship podium at O’Brien Stadium on the campus of Eastern Illinois University.
Last Saturday, in front of a capacity crowd, the Comanches proved to the state and the metro-east who the best track and field team is in the state. Considering some of the outstanding efforts we witnessed throughout the 2006 campaign, Cahokia can pick ‘em up and put them down with the best in the nation! (You check it out yourself if you don’t believe me.)
Scoring a record-setting 94.3 points on Saturday, C.C. High broke the previous Class AA mark of 78 points, set in 2003 by South Holland Thornwood. In addition, the C.C. High thinclads broke the overall state points total by any class, breaking Class A Chicago Leo’s total of 85 in the 2002 state meet.
Head Coach Leroy Millsap hoisted the Class AA trophy high in the air Saturday night after the team bus arrived at the school with parents, staff, coaches, student body and other well wishers looking on to get a glimpse of the state champs. The new state champs arrived back home in style too with a police escort and a welcome home from the city Mayor at 10:00 p.m. That’s impressive.
“This was what we and the young men have been working for since last year when we left Charleston. We prepared everyday and the young men responded,’” Millsap said.
And boy did they ever. Led by Jerdo Williams, Earnest Winters, Clyde Young and anchor Greg Williams, Cahokia set a meet record in the 4×100-meter relay with a blistering time of 41.42 seconds.
They also had two individual winners: Kali Jackson in the long jump and Winters in the 200-meter dash. In addition to the 4×100 team of Winters, Jerdo Williams, Greg Williams and Marvin Moore was victorious while six individuals finished either second or third. At the end of the day, the 4×400-meter relay team of Greg Williams, Darien Donald, Moore and Exzaybion Jackson finished second to East Side.
There were a few bumps in the road on Friday as All-American triple jumper Kali Jackson did not advance to Saturday’s finals after scratching on all three of his qualifying attempts. Jackson recovered to win the long jump on his final attempt (23 feet 11 inches) to defeat Trae Johnson of Marion (23-8). Young, the son of former East St. Louis Flyerette great Sheila Ware (class of 1980), finished third with a leap of 23-1 ¾.
Jackson failed to win his favorite event, the triple jump, which he was the defending state champion. During Friday’s preliminaries, one of Jackson leaps measured 53- 4, but it was ruled that his toe touched the board.
“I wanted it bad,” Jackson told reporters after the meet. “I went for the record too easy. Too quick. All my jumps were over 51-52 feet”.
The C.C. High thin clads went to the ‘Hard Hat” mentality of assistant track and head football coach Antwyne Golliday, and dug deep Saturday afternoon to bring back to the city of Cahokia their first State Championship of any kind since 1979 when the girls softball team won the AA state title.
Meanwhile, the defending state champion East St. Louis Flyers proved to they weren’t going down without a fight. The Flyers had nine positions going into Saturday’s finals, six individuals and three relay teams. Artavious Kizer won the 110-meter high hurdles and the 1600-meter relay team of Mario McCottrell, Mikal Rasheed, Artavious Kizer and Dontavious Robinson finished first with a blazing time of 3:15.41.
Flyers head coach Whitfield was all class after defeat. “Cahokia proved to everybody the are a great team and a well coached team. They performed all year…. and continued that here this weekend … our hats of to them.” Whitfield then asked photographers take a picture of both schools together with the first and second place trophies respectively.
As for C.C. High, this is just the start of great things to come for the athletic programs. They have always competed at a very high level, but the time has come where other schools had better get ready for them. This started last year with this track team when these young men finished third with a freshman and sophomore-laden squad.
Then, the football team was 55 seconds away from the Class 5A state championship game when they fumbled inside the own 10-yard line. Rock Island Alleman scored two plays later to give Cahokia a heart-breaking defeat. Most, if not all, of these young men were on both of these teams just mentioned.
Get the point… You better get ready for Cahokia football and the St. Louis American ‘Coach of the Year’ Antwyne “Hard Hat’ Golliday. His boys got a few things to settle with a few teams in football before this group leaves. YEA THEY ALL ARE COMING BACK FOR GOLLIDAY AND MILLSAP NEXT YEAR! GET READY METRO-EAST, CAHOKIA IS HERE TO STAY!
By the way, I’m a graduate of East St. Louis Senior High. I will love and support the kids there FOREVER!!! But I’m going to have to say congratulations to my coaching fraternity at Cahokia on a job well done! After coaching at E-Side for four years, three as an assistant and one as a head coach in baseball, I now coach baseball at Cahokia and had a great time this season working with a good group of young baseball players. By the way, Cahokia beat the flyers in baseball 5-4 this season on a 404-foot homer by first team All-South Seven Conference shortstop Ronnie Thomas Jr.
That same night the Cahokia thinclads won the Al Joyner Classic. Congratulations State Champs Coach Scott!
