Centennial track teams roll through Skyhawk Invitational

It was all Centennial from beginning to end this weekend at Silverado’s track meet.

The Bulldogs’ track teams swept both the boys and girls sides of the 2017 Skyhawk Invitational on Saturday as they continue to prepare for the regional and state meets.

The boys team finished with 169 points, outscoring second-place Liberty by 79 points. The girls fared even better, finishing with 211 points and outscoring second-place Rancho by 129½ points.

“I think we ran and jumped and threw actually really well this weekend,” Centennial coach Roy Sessions said. “We’re just trying to gear up for those meets so we’re playing with a few events to move kids around, preparing for the end of the season.”

One of those events they switched around for this weekend’s meet was the boys 1,600-meter relay, as Centennial used a new group of runners.

The configuration worked well for the Bulldogs, as the team of Jeremiah Steed, Marvin Perkins, Erick Scott and James Johnson finished nine seconds ahead of the second place team in 3 minutes, 19.18 seconds, breaking the previous Skyhawk meet record of 3:21.37 in the process.

“We’ve been very fortunate,” Sessions said. “We have a good strong group of boys, and same thing with the girls (Friday) who broke the (meet) record as well. We’ve got a good group of kids who are working hard and have fun. That’s our goal.”

Along with sweeping both team scores, the Bulldogs also swept the player of the meet awards.

Senior runner Savon Scarver won the male athlete of the meet award with wins in the 300 hurdles in 37.89, the 110 hurdles in 14.97 and the 200 dash in 21.56.

Senior runner Karina Haymore was the female athlete of the meet with a win in the 800 run (2:10.09) and second place finishes in both the 400 dash and 1,600 run.

None of it was a surprise to a Centennial team that trains to compete with the best in the country.

“We train to be a national team,” Sessions said. “It’s not anything against the Nevada teams — Rancho ran marvelous this weekend — we just train to be a national team. So if we train like that and compete like that, we expect to do well in almost every meet.”

Centennial has plenty of senior leaders on the roster, but its freshmen have also impressed this weekend. Quincy Bonds won the 300 hurdles in 44.25 for the girls team, and Ashley Moore finished second in the triple jump with a distance of 36 feet, 4¼ inches in her first triple jump of the season.

“Just all around we’ve got a young group that is doing really well and of course a couple of the seniors have been performing amazing also,” Session said.

With the regional meets around the corner, the Bulldogs continue to work on improving, shooting for personal bests and remaining focused on their goals past the meet at Silverado.

“Our thing is just trying to get healthy and stay healthy,” Session said. “We have a month to peak for state. So as long as we’re healthy and the kids stay out of trouble, I think we’ll be OK.”

Contact reporter Bill Slane at bslane@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4559. Follow @bill_slane on Twitter.