By RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

LAPLACE — East St. John and Riverside each saw some top-flight competition in the Allstate Sugar Bowl Track and Field Classic meet last Saturday at Tad Gormley Stadium, with the Rebels’ Michelle Mayes highlighting local competitors.

Mayes was the meet’s discus champion, taking first place with a throw of 107-09. She also finished fourth in the shot put (33-10.25) and fifth in the javelin (104-09). Mayes bested 45 other competitors in the shot put event. 

More than 40 schools had representatives competing at the event on each of the boys and girls sides. 

The Rebel girls finished 12th at the event as a team. Whitehaven of Tennessee won the Classic, while Conroe Oak Ridge of Texas won the boys meet. 

Hahnville finished sixth among all boys schools  

Other notable Rebel finishers included Jordan Andrews, whose high jump of 5-10 was the 12th best mark of 35 competitors. 

The East St. John 4×100 meter girls relay team (Kailah Washington, Ledeja Harvey, Keilah Scott and Ayonte Thomas) highlighted the Wildcat relay squads, taking 15th (51.69) of 33 teams. 

“I thought it went pretty well,” said East St. John girls track and field coach Mark Creecy. “Our relay girls ran season bests. Ayonte (Thomas) cut her hurdles time from 17.18 to 15.9, so that was really encouraging. We didn’t have one of our top athletes in Joi (Elizabeth Scioneaux), but I was happy to see us improve in several areas.”

The Wildcat boys’ top relay finishers was the 4×800 team (9:03.84), which finished 11th. After that, the Wildcat 4×200 team (1:34.83) finished 23rd in that event, while the Rebel boys finished 26th (1:36.46). 

The ESJ boys had to reshuffle their lineup when both Dontrell Allen and Darius Lipps pulled up injured while running at the meet’s preliminary round on Friday night. ESJ boys coach Greg Gathers said that Allen’s was held out for precautionary reasons and that it isn’t expected to keep him out long.

The 4×100 team entered with high expectations but a mishandled handoff on the baton exchange left the Wildcats with a DQ finish.

(Allen) ran a 10.9 in the preliminary 100 the night before which was very promising. We just didn’t want to take any chances with him,” said Gathers, who noted also that Lipps won his heat in the 100. 

He said that the 4×100 exchange mishap, by his understanding, was unfortunately caused by an opposing team’s lane infraction.

“I’m not sure what happened … Somebody else ended up in our lane and we ended up dropping the baton,” said Gathers. “It’s one of those things where, we weren’t happy, but there wasn’t anything we could do to change it.”