The Craig County track team will be in Daleville Thursday to compete in a track meet hosted by Lord Botetourt High School. The Rockets had their first meet of the season last Friday with the New River Invitational at Giles High School as they ran, jumped and threw against Auburn, Eastern Montgomery, Narrows, James Monroe, Princeton, Bland, George Wythe, Fort Chiswell, Parry McCluer and the host Giles Spartans.
Rocket junior Caleb Cregger took second place in high jump, breaking the school record at 6’. He tied for the best jump of the day but the tie- breaker for first went to the other jumper.
“He showed a lot of guts entering the field events without being able to practice, and battled his way into the finals,” said Craig coach Jayke Dowdy.
Cregger would also take fourth in the Triple Jump with a leap of 37’6.
Junior Noah Paxton placed eighth in the Discus and senior Brook Wright was fifth in the girls’ shot put. Sophomore Jeremiah Fowler and junior Blake Hannah both had big PR’s in the shot put.
Sophomore Bradyn Dunbar and senior Carter Calfee both had huge PR’s in the 100 meter race, coming in at 11.56 and 11.76 respectively. Dunbar finished fourth in the event with his time.
Sophomores Dylan Sarver and Blake Kendall both PR’d in the 200 while junior Marcus Donithan and sophomore Clayton Cassell both PR’d in the 400. Freshman Jon Frazier hit a big PR in the 800m.
Sophomore Robbie Eakin hit PR’s in both the 110 and 300 Hurdles, taking home fifth in the 110 and sixth in the 300. The 4×100 relay team of Eakin, Paxton, Calfee and Dunbar set a new team best 46.26 and placed third behind Auburn and Princeton. The team is hopeful to break the school record this season.
“It was a great day in Pearisburg,” said Dowdy. “Anytime you break a school record it’s obviously huge for the team, but the amount of kids that were able to see their hard work show up with better times and better field events is always awesome. We have our limitations, but we battled through that with a lot of gusty performances.
“It’s no surprise when kids that put years of work into the weight room start seeing results like this for themselves. Anytime we had kids competing the others were always screaming for them and cheering them on. Every day the team breaks the huddle on family, and you can tell they really mean that.”
This is the largest, by number, boys’ team that Craig County has ever had. However, they still don’t fill all the events and that hurts to place high in the team standings. Coach Dowdy is pleased that the Rockets are more than competitive in the events in which they compete.
“We do not have enough individualized kids to fill out the field events and the distance races to battle for points, but we were very competitive in almost every event we entered,” he said. “It’s only the first meet, so there’s a lot more potential this season. We just have to keep working to get better.”
