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A small contingent of Davie track athletes travelled to Mt. Tabor Friday night for the Spartan Relays. The 14-person squad competed with approximately 15 other schools for the inaugural event at the Spartans’ new track facility.

Leading the way for the War Eagles was the boys’ distance medley relay team, which came home with the championship. Despite a cold, blustery wind, the Davie boys were easily the class of the field and coasted across the finish line in 11:39 to defeat runner-up Tabor and third-place Southwest Guilford.

Clay Summers ran the leadoff leg that covered 1200 meters. After toying with the field over the first 600 meters, Summers turned on the jets and staked the team to a 50-meter lead. Wyatt Kuehnemann took the baton from Summers for the 400-meter leg and maintained the Davie lead. Nate Brooks was next up and extended the lead to 70 meters during the 800-meter segment of the race. Trey Raisbeck took it from there and was never challenged during the 1600-meter leg as the Davie senior lapped one of the slower teams in the field.

The remaining War Eagle competitors participated in the field events. Ivan Poag captured third place in the high jump with a clearance of 6’0” and also picked up second place in the triple jump with a best effort of 41-10.5. Teammate Isaiah Cuthrell was a busy man as he competed in three events. The junior was 10th in the high jump (5-4), eighth in the long jump (19-0) and seventh in the triple jump (37-9).

Most of the action for the War Eagles took place in the throws as numerous athletes participated in the discus and shot put. Christian Hernandez placed sixth in the discus with a heave of 102-3 for a new personal best. He came back in the shot put to place 11th with a throw of 33-9. Paul Pollard claimed 12th in the discus  (84-9) and 16th in the shot (81.05). Alex Myers grabbed 12th in the discus (84-9). Bishop Norman was ninth in the shot with a throw of 37-1.

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The Lady War Eagles were represented by a quartet of throwers. Leading the way was Lexie May, whose discus effort of 104-8 was good for second place. May also grabbed ninth in the shot with a throw of 29-3.

Fellow senior Erin Cartner brought home a pair of eighth place finishes with throws of 72-0 in the discus and 29-11 in the shot. Rihonna Wilson unleashed a 76-4 effort in the discus, which was a personal best for her. Wilson also nabbed 10th in the shot with a throw of 27-9. Madison Abrams also competed for Davie in both of the throw events and set a personal best in the discus.    

Junior Emerson Frantz competed in the girls’ mile against a stellar field that featured several members of the Cardinal Gibbons state champion cross country team. Although the usual high school distance is 1600 meters, the meet featured the full mile, which is nine meters further. Frantz crossed the finish line in eighth place with a time of 5:41.3. That converted to a personal best time of 5:39 for 1600 meters and marked the first time Frantz had gone under 5:40.      

According to coach Rob Raisbeck, the team only took a handful of athletes to the meet as most of the team had competed at a tri-meet earlier in the week and many athletes had gone out of town for spring break.

“We still did some good things Friday night,” he said. “We got three PR’s in the throws, which is pretty amazing because the wind was pretty stiff and tends to force the disc into the ground. It was also nice to get a win in the DMR on the home track of one of the top distance running programs in the state.”

The team is off this week before returning to competition at two meets next week. On April 3, the War Eagles will host their second CPC tri-meet of the season. On April 6, they will travel to Charlotte for the Queen City Relays.