Two individual wins by senior Parker English and strong relay performances across the board fueled the Evanston girls track team to the team title at the Eastern Relays invitational hosted by the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
Evanston dominated the two-day test by piling up 66 points, easily outdistancing runnerup Lawrence Central of Indiana with 53. A total of 52 teams competed at the prestigious invitational.
English blazed her way to victories in the 200-meter dash (24.85 seconds) and 400-meter dash (55.38), and also placed 6th in the long jump with a best effort of 17 feet, three-quarters inches.
Also turning in top individual performances for the Wildkits were Alexia Harvey, 2nd in the 100 hurdles in 15.36; Remy Amarteifio, 4th in the 300 hurdles in 48.11 and 6th in the 100 hurdles in 15.58; Shahara Mitchell, 6th in the shot put at 38-8; and Latalee Lawrence, 7th in the triple jump at 34-5 and three-fourths.
Coach Fenton Gunter’s squad was particularly impressive in scoring top 5 finishes in the 400, 1600, 800 sprint medley and 1600 sprint medley relays.
In the 400, English teamed up with Amarteifio, Harvey and Miranda Dangerfield for a 3rd place time of 48.98. Two freshmen — Nora Robinson and Tauja Foreman — were part of the 3rd place 1600 unit that also included junior Amari Johnson and senior Jania Banks, in a time of 4:04.09.
The 1600 sprint medley consisted of a 200, 200, 400 and 800 and Evanston earned a 3rd place finish in 4:17.83 behind the quartet of Dangerfield, Harvey, Grace Sarkor and Ashley Vesotsky. In the 800 (100-100-200-400) sprint medley, Astraya Alexander, Gabrielle Watson, Johnson and Crea Taylor placed 5th in 1:55.90.
Evanston also earned 11th but failed to score in the 800 relay as Watson, Taylor, Sarkor and Alexander were clocked in 1:49.35.