By RYAN ARENA

L’Observateur

 

RESERVE — Five East St. John athletes are headed to state after last week’s Region III-5A championship meet and will compete Saturday at LSU’s Bernie Moore Stadium.

East St. John’s Dominique White, Rashad Green, Elex Carter, Fred Williams, and Donald Stirgus all placed top three in their individual events at Thibodaux High School on Thursday.

ESJ finished fifth among boys and 12th among girls overall. Rummel won the boys regional, Ehret the girls regional.  

White led the way for ESJ, notching a first place finish in the 200 meter dash. Her time of 25.38 secured her a trip to state, where she will be the Ladycats’ lone representative.

“She surprised me,” said East St. John girls track and field coach Quentin Bradley. “She’s more of a 400 meter runner … going in, she may have had the third fastest time and wasn’t expected to win.

“Dominique ran her heart out, though. I’m extremely proud of her. Now, she’s going out to try and win state.”

Bradley said that to do that, it’ll most likely take even more of an improvement.

“I think the winner will have to run sub-25 (seconds),” said Bradley. “Leading up to it, we’ll work on her start and getting out the blocks fast enough.”

On the boys side, Williams took second place in the discus with a final mark of 138-11, just off of the first place mark of Central Lafourche’s Lee Blanchard (140-02).

Carter made a big splash in the triple jump, taking second place with his offering of 45-04.50.

“The surprising thing for us was Elex coming up three feet from his mark in district,” said East St. John boys track and field coach Greg Gathers. “I have to credit that to coach Quentin Bradley, he worked with him and taught him better technique. (Carter) made a big improvement.”

Green finished third in the high jump with a mark of 6-02.

On the track, Stirgus finished third in the 1600 by setting a time of 4:44.30.

“I’m proud of all of our guys,” said Gathers. “All of our kids gave great effort. Now we’ll see how we do in state. When it’s done, I know they’ll be able to hold their heads high.”

Hahnville’s girls’ 4×100 relay team (Breanne Bais, Richaell Preston, Christa Chelton and Kaelyn Smith) also notched first place (49.10) at the regional. Kaelyn Smith took third place (12.85) in the 100. Toryan Flot was second in the 300 (48.66).

On the Hahnville boys side, Bryce Robinson took second in the 1600 (4:42.80) and Beau Robinson was second in the 3200 (10.00:41).

Destrehan’s Dillan Dent was second in the 100 (11.20).

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