-
Habersham Central’s Julia Johnson (right) crosses the last row of hurdles in heat two of the Battle of the Blue Ridge track meet. ZACH TAYLOR/Special
The Habersham Central Track and Field teams competed in the Mt. Yonah Invitational hosted by White County on Friday.
The boys team placed second overall, finishing just behind a very talented White County squad. The Lady Raiders placed fourth.
“Several of our marks lately have helped push our kids into a great position to score at region and possibly make it out to the sectional meet,” Raiders coach Jonathan Long said. “It’s been great to see our kids performing their best toward the end of the season. It gives us confidence that they can carry it over into region, sectional and state.”
Those performances came on the heels of dominating their home meet, the Battle of the Blue Ridge, on March 24.
“I was extremely pleased with how both our girls and boys performed,” Loing said of the Blue Ridge meet. “It is always a good day when you have multiple school records broken at a single meet. We had a lot of kids step up and get personal bests, which helped push both teams ahead into first place.”
Long said the Raiders tried to use this invitational as a first dry run for the region meet so the athletes can see how it feels to run all their events in a day similar to how they do at the sectional meet.
“We met as a team last week before our invitational and discussed our current standing in the region as a team and as individuals,” Long said. “We have a chance for one or both teams to push for at least region runner-up this year. I think (Blue Ridge) went a long way to building confidence in our kids that they can be successful in the postseason. In each of the last three years, we have taken the most athletes to the sectional meet in the school’s history and we are in a great position this year to break that record again, as well as the record for the most kids making it to the state meet.”
The Raiders will compete in the Walnut Grove Tuneup meet April 11.
“As a coaching staff we are very excited about the outlook for this season and can’t wait to see how our kids continue to improve and perform leading to the postseason,” Long said.
– Staff reports