29 schools represented at Capital City meet

The Capital City Invitational Track and Field Classic took a major step toward becoming one of the state’s premier high school meets with an outstanding show of talent and organization this year. Twenty-nine different schools, twenty boys and twenty girls teams, participated in this year’s event that was a part of the U.S. High School series produced by the United States Track Coaches Association.

Last year Manny Joanos and John Citron put their heads together in an effort to bring a very high quality high school meet to town to replace the old Kiwanis meet. As a team they proved to be masters not only at raising sponsorship money, but also organizing a top-notch event.

One of the groups they have looked to both years for help has been GWTC and the club has responded very well. It has been a great partnership and is a wonderful way of reaching out to young runners. Not only is the club listed prominently as a Silver sponsor, but also members get to see the club up close and personal. And anyone who doesn’t just melt when Kara Newell comes up after the meet and says, “THANKS for being here” needs help.

In this year’s event, Rickards High’s girls team bested Groves High School out of Savannah by a score of 77 to 58 to take the girls title, while Godby relied on a strong showing in the field events to beat Maclay 109 to 86 in the boys meet.

The stars of the show though were the individual kids. Ryan Deak pulled off a very impressive triple running a 2:00.0 800, 4:18.75 1600 (just under his PR 4:18.90 effort at the Florida Relays last weekend) and a 9:45.75 3200. He won the 1600 and 3200 and finished second in the 800.

Kara almost matched the effort with a 5:10.55 1600 and personal best 10:59.17 1600 to win both events and the award for Outstanding Female Track Athlete. Molly Jones scored big for Maclay in the field events winning the high jump (5’04’), taking third in the long jump (16’08”) and winning the triple jump (36’04.50″). She was named Outstanding Female Field Athlete.

Antonio Cromartie edged Ryan out for the Outstanding Male Track Athlete. All he did was win 110 and 300 meter hurdles events in meet record times of 14.55 and 39.43. Mike Williams was the Outstanding Field Performer as he won the long jump (22’06.50″) and triple jump (45’07”) and finished fourth in the high jump (5’10”).

Special thanks to all of the GWTC volunteers who helped make the meet a success.

Complete results.