The Roberson girls won Saturday’s Tri-Cities Track Classic in Johnson City, Tenn., with just a dozen athletes.
SKYLAND – Roberson wasn’t the biggest girls team at Saturday’s Tri-Cities Track Classic in Johnson City, Tenn.
The Rams were just the best.
And that bodes well for a squad which looks like it can score points just about anywhere – in distance events, sprints or the field.
“Coming out of spring break, we weren’t expecting something like that,” senior Chesley Krug said.
“With this team, we definitely have a lot of different strengths in many events. I don’t know that I’ve ever been a part of a team like this here. We have good runners, we have good jumpers, we have everything.”
Krug is a former All-WNC pole vaulter who said she has accepted an appointment to the Naval Academy. Krug cleared a school-record height of 11 feet, 6 inches as a junior.
She came in second in the field event Saturday (10-6) and was part of two gold-medal relays – the 1,600-meter team (4:07.20) also consisted of Michelle Cobb, Mary Laci Motley and Ashlyn Blakley, while the 3,200-meter relay (9:45.70) was made up of Krug, Blakley, Elise Wright and Camryn Jansen.
Motley ran a meet record in the 400-meter dash (58.03) and the Rams (97 points) beat out their nearest team competitor, Blacksburg, S.C. (35.5) for the Tri-Cities championship by 61.5 points. There were more than 40 schools from four different states competing at Science Hill (Tenn.).
Cobb took first place in the triple jump (36-8.25) for Roberson. Elyse King came in second in the long jump (17-7) and was third in the triple jump (36-2).
Finally, Krug, Jansen, Wright and Blakley were the runners-up in the distance medley relay (13:00.12).
“This team has a wide range of talents,” said Jansen, who is a junior.
“It’s a good feeling to win a meet like this. It was a long day, and we had people doing really well in multiple events.”
This is the first outdoor season in more than a decade for the Roberson girls without the coaching services of Andy Morgan.
Morgan led the Rams to state championships in 2007 and 2009 as a 3-A program. He formally accepted the position as McDowell’s football coach on Feb. 12.
Rachel Petre has taken over for Morgan with the Roberson girls track program, but said that coaching the group is a collaborative effort between her, Artis Gilmore, Scott Mead, Dave Culp and Amberle Dalton.
“I knew going into (the Johnson City meet) that we were coming out of spring break and it’s a lot to ask athletes to commit to that,” Petre said.
“We took a small group. But as the day kept rolling, they kept giving us a chance. Everyone showed up. This group has worked so hard every day with their training. I feel good about the future.”
The Rams will compete at this weekend’s Taco Bell Invitational in Columbia, S.C., and the Buncombe County meet is next week at Reynolds.
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