The William Byrd indoor track team came within two girls’ points of sweeping
the Region 3D track meet last Saturday. The Byrd boys won the meet and the girls were
second, just one and a half points out of first place, at the Kerr-Cregger Fieldhouse on the
campus of Roanoke College in Salem.
The Byrd boys scored 99.5 points to easily win their meet. Abingdon was second
with 65 and Lord Botetourt finished third with 52 points.
Byrd’s DeShawn Austin was named the boys’ Field Event Athlete of the Year. DeShawn won the regional championship in the long and triple jump with distances of 21’11.5” and 44’11.75”. He also won the 55m hurdles with a time of 7.93 and was region runner-up in the 300 in 36.78. To finish off the day Austin anchored the winning 4×400 relay with Brady Reachy, Wyatte Bailey and Donald Mullins, taking the region
championship with a time of 3:38.35.
Bailey was the regional champion in the pole vault and he also finished second in
the 500m dash with a time of 1:09.83. Cooper Minnix finished fourth in the 55m dash
with a time of 6.75 and fifth in the 300m dash in 37.67.
Byrd also had two third place relay teams in the boys’ meet. The 4x200m relay of
Minnix, Reachy, Noah Thompson and Jerrett Shepherd ran a time of 1:36.86 and the
4x800m foursome of Reagan Lilley, Mullins, Reid Hanson and Shaun Gower finished in
8:43.13.
The girls nearly matched the boys result with 89.5 points. Unfortunately that was
a point and a half behind Abingdon, who had 91, so the Byrd girls settled for second.
Christiansburg was third, just four points behind the winner, for third place with 87 in a
race to the finish for region supremacy.
Byrd’s Lily Perez was named the Female Field Event Athlete of the Year. Lily
won the long jump with a leap of 16’.75” and was the triple jump champ with a hop, skip
and a jump of 34’2.75”. Perez also took second in the 55 hurdles with a time of 9.55
while Virginia Yonce finished fifth in that race and Emily Fisher was eighth.
Olivia Bustamante won region high jump honors, clearing the bar at 4’10”. Olivia
also took second in the long jump at 15’6”.
Other runner-up finishes included Sydney Blewett with a second in the shot put
and Grace Onwi took two seconds with a time of 42.6 in the 300 meter dash and 1:18.86
in the 500 meters.
Lucy Whitenack took fourth place in the 1,000 and also ran on the third place
4×800 relay team with Liz Dixon, Heidi Wienke and Alexandra Bonilla. The relay team
ran a time of 10:59.40.
Next up for the Terriers is the Class 3 state meet. That will be held at Liberty
University in Lynchburg on Monday and Tuesday of next week, February 26 and 27.
