The curtain has fallen on the spring sports season.
Gilmer High made its way to the Georgia High School Association’s Track and Field State Championships last week. Over a three-day span, Class 3A athletes slugged it out at Hugh Mills Stadium in Albany.
Five GHS athletes made the trip, and they recorded a combined six top-10 finishes.
“Our kids who have been a part of the program really rose to the occasion,” said head coach Josh Snider. “It was an all around package that was built by some amazing kids willing to work under some amazing coaches.
“Our kids bought in. We had an amazing coach in Neal Ellis working with our throwers and sprinters, Trey Rickman with our long jumpers and triple jumpers and hurdlers, Lauren Gonzalez working with our high-jumping girl and Brooke Berry tearing it up with our long distance runners. The credit goes to these coaches who pushed our kids to get to where they were. And the credit goes to our kids, who responded.”
Lady Cat sophomore Taylor McCormick turned in Gilmer’s best placement at the event. She spent the season near the top of the standings at most meets and placed fifth in the high jump when she cleared 5’ 2”.
Junior Reagan Boling claimed sixth in the 400-meter run with a time of 1:01.16. Senior teammate Naomi Coombs was there for seventh place in the 800 meters at 2:23.44.
Lady Cat senior Emily Hancock topped out at 8’ in the pole vault for ninth place, and posted a preliminary time of 51.36 in the second heat of the 300-meter hurdles.
In the 4x400 relay, McCormick, Boling, Coombs and Hancock joined forces for a seventh-place time of 4:21.52.
Sophomore Will Kiker was the lone Bobcat at the meet. He competed in the pole vault and achieved a height of 12’ 6” for 10th place.
The Lady Cats roster only consisted of nine athletes this season. The Bobcats’ numbers were down as well, but not as much as the Lady Cats.
“The conversation that we as a whole unit had at the beginning, was ‘Look, we don’t necessarily have the numbers to win region this year, but we do have the number to fight for a two or three spot,’” Snider said. “We were going to focus on individual successes continuing to still build up the team and those kids did that. We maximized the events for those kids.”
Snider concluded by adding, “Where many teams might have kids who focus on two or three events, our kids focused on four events each.
“We did a crazy maneuver and did not have a (girls) 4x100 team initially. We were able to put one back together at region to score an extra point or two. It’s because we had kids who were willing to step up and fill their four maximum spots for competing.”