Photo by Raquel Hendrickson

In their home meet, the Maricopa Twilight, the Maricopa High School girls track team took third place among 17 competing schools, and the boys finished seventh.

Maricopa athletes won three events and scored 66 points on the girls’ side. The boys totaled 42 points.

Freshman Shannon Coutré won the 400-meter dash in 1:02.31, her top time. Freshman Italy Brookshire tied for highest pole vault at 4-10.

Despite easing up at the end on a windy afternoon, senior Jada Wright won her specialty event, the 800-meter run, in 2:28.87. That is three seconds slower than her best time this season and less than six seconds off her school record.

It was also Senior Night at Rams Stadium, a good time for Wright to reflect on her high school career. Wright has run for MHS since her sophomore year. She quickly realized she was expected to be a leader.

“That took a lot of work,” she said. “Basically I had to put my mind to it. From then I would medal and take top three in all my heats and even made state my first year.”

As she works toward returning to state at the end of this season, Wright is pulling for the girls coming up behind her. She said she feels like “the old dog now” in giving them advice.

“I do feel like I have new competition now,” she said. “They’re fresh and new at this, and they’re already doing very well, so I know I won’t hold all my records for that long, which I’m very fine with, because I want them to improve and move on. So if they break my records I’ll be happy to know that they did it.”

Coach Sheldon Hutchinson said the young team is getting a lot of experience this season and expects the final meets of the season to give them higher competition.

“Hopefully, they’ll have that experience to be able to go to state and do well,” he said. “Even if that doesn’t happen, they’ll be able to come back next year and the year after that and even the year after that.”

Also scoring points for the girls, sophomore Megan Carr ran her best time in the 3200-meter run and finished third in 12:14.34.

Leilena Young was fifth in the shot put with a throw of 29-9. Jakayla Shaw was sixth in the 100-meter dash in 13.99. Jennifer John was sixth in the 100-meter hurdles in 18.25.

The top eight places in individual events score team points. Daniela Gracia-Rios was eighth in the 300-meter hurdles in 53.27 and in the 100-meter hurdles in 19.15. Aisawan Chanpraphag was eighth in the pole vault in a tie at 5-11. Mysia Hudson was eighth in the shot put in 28-1 and in the discus at 82-8.

The girls finished second in the 4X800-meter relay in 10:35.24.

For the MHS boys, P.J. Austin was fourth in two events and sixth in another. Sam Coles scored points in two events.

Austin finished fourth in the 200-meter dash in 23.08 and in the long jump in 19-8. He took sixth in the 100-meter dash in 11.85.

Coles was sixth in the pole vault at 9-0 and ran eighth in the 800-meter run in 2:08.82.

Longman Pyne was sixth in the 400 in 52.75, and Devin Parady was sixth in the triple jump at 28-9.75.

Just a fraction ahead of Coles, Jesse Gaines was seventh in the 800 in 2:08.29. John Blodgett finished eighth in the 3200 in 10:47.73.

The boys placed second in the 4X400-meter relay in 3:32.48 and were third in the 4X100-meter relay in 44.72.

The Rams next compete Friday at Westwood High School in Mesa in the Hohokam Invitational. The Division II State Championships are set for May 4 and 7 at Mesa Community College.