Mountain Brook fares well at state meet

Mountain Brook concluded the indoor track and field season on Feb. 7 at the state championships at Birmingham CrossPlex.

Overall, it was a good day for the Spartans as both the girls and boys ranked highly in many of the events and many runners on both teams set personal records en route to high finishes. 

The girls team finished second to Class 7A first-place Hoover. The Lady Bucs scored 123.50 points to the Lady Spartans 68.

The boys finished fifth with 33 points, just two points behind James Clemens. Auburn won the boys title, followed by Hoover and Hewitt-Trussville.

In the girls 1600-meter run, the Spartans grabbed two top 10 finishes with sophomore Anna Grace Morgan finishing fourth and junior Frances Patrick finishing sixth. Morgan and Patrick also both finished in the top five in the 3200-meter run, with Patrick finishing second and Morgan finishing fifth. 

The girls had two top 10 in the 800-meter run, with senior Sanders Reed finishing second and junior Helen Camp finishing seventh. 

 “This weekend was amazing,” Morgan said. “Everyone gave it all they had and almost everyone hit their personal records.” 

Junior Drew Williams finished second in the boys 1600-meter run, while senior Marshall Smith missed a top 10 finish by 19 tenths of a second, finishing 11th. Smith finished third at the 3200-meter run, while fellow senior Michael Clark finished 17th. 

 “I thought it was a good season overall,” Smith said. “We had a lot of personal records across the board. A lot of guys really stepped up when they needed to.”  

According to Smith, the Spartans’ Griffin Riley was tripped at the beginning of the 800-meter run, which took him out of the race. Riley hit a time of 1:58 for the 800-meter run earlier this season. Paul Barlow from Auburn, the winner of the 800, won with a time of 1:57.93. Williams finished fourth in the 800 with a time of 2:00.51. 

The boys team finished third in the 4x800-meter relay, barely missing a second-place finish by one tenth of a second, while the girls team finished second in the 4x400-meter relay and fourth in the 4x800-meter relay.  

For the girls program, the future bodes well for a young team that had to overcome a lot of personnel losses from last year’s team.