Northampton Track Team Rocks State Championship Meet

Special report by Terry Flynn

Last weekend members of the Northampton boys and girls track teams traveled to East Rockingham HS in Elkton, VA to compete in the 1A State Track and Field Championship. Head Coaches Oliver Bennett and Vivian Dent made the trip out with the team. I’m the pole vaulting coach and went out, too, taking three vaulters! It was a wet, soggy mess of a day, and I give our athletes a lot of credit for competing in sometimes very adverse conditions. It rained continually, and they had to pause the event twice and cover the pole vault pits because of heavy downpours.  Forest won the pole vault with a meet record jump of 13-03, which also beat the 2A winning jump. Below is a quick wrap up.

Girls Team:

Freshman JyAsia  Savage placed 5^th in the 100 m dash with a time of 12.83

The 4×100 relay team of 1) Bailey, Ayanna  2) Richardson, Nia-imani 3) Savage, JyAsia  4) Washington, Shy’kesiah placed 9^th overall with a time of 54.24.

Below is a video of Forest Flynn’s winning pole vault taken by his brother Liam:

Boys Team
Northampton had three pole vaulters in the meet, freshman Tyrease Harris, junior Forest Flynn and senior Alphonso Godwin. Godwin placed 14th with a jump of 8’-03”, and Flynn won it with a jump of 13’-03”. This is Flynn’s second consecutive state championship, and his jump of 13’-03” sets a new state meet record. This season he set a new state record with a jump of 13’-03.5”. (It also beat his dad’s record of 13’-03”.)

The boys 4×100 team of 1) Burgess, Camron 2) Robinson, Jarbob 3) Smith, Corey 4) Johnson, Shamar placed 8^th overall with a time of 47.24.

The boys 4×400 team of 1) Fisher, Brian 2) Robinson, Jarbob 3) Langston, Jaquan 4) Harmon, Clarence placed 10^th with a time of 3:50.98.

Also Northampton , and particularly Church Neck is now the home of two current state champion vaulters, Forest and Gunnar Gustafson from Broadwater who won the VISAA DII pole vault with a jump of 11′.