Matanzas distance runners Rain Marti and Kelly Steffens won individual events and the Lady Pirate girls captured two relays to lead the team to a strong second-place finish at the St. Johns River Athletic Conference meet at St. Augustine on April 4.
The Lady Pirates scored 121.5 points, bested only by Bartram Trail with 150.5 for the conference team title. Marti won the 800 meter run and Steffens took first in the 3,200 meters.
The Matanzas boys struggled to score points with limited participants and finished seventh. But Jacob Miley added to his list of accomplishments this spring by capturing the 400 meter run and was part of two relay teams.
The Lady Pirates scored in all but one event and had multiple placers in middle and long distance runs. They got off to a solid start in the opening event of the meet, taking the 4x800 relay in 10:28.86 with Marti, Steffens, Morgan Sharman and Allison Tuggle.
Marti won the 800 meters in 2:33.27 and teammate Ella Santilli was seventh in 2:39.37. Marti was also the top Lady Pirate in the 1,600 meters with a second-place finish in 4:32.26, with Steffens one second behind her in third and Sharman taking sixth in 5:42.45.
Steffens continued to dominate in distance races by winning the 3,200 meters in 11:59.59. Sharman was third in 12:27.40 and Genevieve Mundy finished eighth in 13:36.40.
The Lady Pirates also picked up a win in the closing 4x400 meter relay as Tuggle, Oryiah Clayton, Ja’Dashia Catlin and Cadean Wilds ran 4:15.93 for the first place ribbon.
Catlin had a second-place finish in the individual events when she ran the 400 meters in 1:01.56. Catlin took fourth in the 200 meters in 26.75 seconds and Wilds also had a fourth place effort in the 100 meters with a time of 12.92.
Hurdler Shanell Posey placed in both hurdles events, taking sixth in the finals of the 100 hurdles in 17.03 seconds and later taking seventh in the 300 lows in 51.81. The Matanzas 4x100 relay team was third in 51.33 seconds.
The Lady Pirates placed in five field events, the best showing a fourth in the high jump by Dilynn Warren at 4-11. Maya Felton was fifth in the triple jump at 30-2½ and eighth in the long jump at 13-9¼. Pole vaulters Rose RiIey and Reece Villaverde were fifth and sixth, both at 5-10¾ height, and shot putter Adrianna Brandt was eighth at 29-1¼ .
BOYS MEET
Jacob Miley was Matanzas’s only blue ribbon winner at conference and not in his signature event. The junior cracked the 50-second barrier at 48.92 seconds to win the 400 meter run.
Miley was not entered in the 800, but teammate Kevin Connolly ran fourth at 2:05.26. Dalton Hawley placed in both distance races, taking fifth in the 3,200 meters in 10:37.98 and seventh in the 1,600 meters in 4:49.54. Hurdler Josef Powell made the finals of the 110 highs and took seventh in a time of 16.61.
The Pirates did not have entries in a number of field events, but got placing efforts from junior thrower Seaton Waldhauer. Waldhauer was fourth in the discus at 123-7½ and sixth in the shot put at 40-11¾.
The Pirates 4x800 relay team (Miley, Max Hornstein, Hawley and Jared Gasper) was fourth in 8:45.08, and the 4x100 team of Trenton Steward, Powell, Shane Riley and Tristin Williams-Whyte ran 56.76 seconds in the finals while the 4x400 team of Miley, Hornstein, Connolly and Curtis Gray was fifth at 3:41.61.