Eighth-grader Williams mines 2 gold medals at 2A meet

JACKSONVILLE — McKeel eighth-grader Chelsi Williams made her debut at the FHSAA state track and field meet on Saturday in dramatic fashion.

Williams was at her best, or barely shy of her best, in all three of her events en route to winning two gold medals and three medals overall.

Williams won the triple jump, then won her specialty, the 100-meter hurdles, with a personal record on Saturday, at the 2021 FHSAA Class 2A State Track and Field Championships at the University of North Florida. She capped her day by finishing fifth in the 300 hurdles.

“I was trying to go for three golds,” she said with a big smile. “I was hoping to win the triple jump and do 11.5 (meters) and I accomplished that. I was hoping to 14.1, or maybe a 13.9 or 14.2 (in the 100 hurdles). I was supposed to do 43 (seconds) in the 300 hurdles, but that didn’t happen.”

Williams’ day began with the triple jump where she found herself in second after two attempts. An adjustment helped her land the winning jump. 

“My steps, my mark was off,” she said. “I wasn’t on the board. I kept being behind the board, which caused me to be 11 (meters) flat, and then I hit the board and I hit 11.54.”

On her third attempt, she nailed a jump of 37 feet, 10.5 inches which was barely shy of her personal record by an inch.

“I was so happy,” she said. “I had a huge smile across myself.”

Williams wasn’t sure if the mark would hold up. She was checking in for the 100 hurdles when her top opponents made their final attempts.

“My dad (Curtis Williams) came over and he smiled and he gave me a high-five,” she said.

With the extra confidence she gained by winning the triple jump, Williams ran a blazing personal-best time 14.15 to win the 100 hurdles, topping her own personal record of 14.24. She passed former George Jenkins runner Tori Abnathy for the second-best time in Polk County history, and was just two-hundredths of a second off the county record set in 2018 by Auburndale’s Tyra Thomas.

“I knew I could do it (win the race) because if I came through in the triple jump, I knew I could come through in the hurdles,” she said.

Williams came in to the 300 hurdles seeded fifth with a time of 46.26. She finished fifth in 45.94, which was her third-best time and just the third time she ran under 46 seconds in the event.

“I was hoping for a faster time, but I guess I let my nerves get the best of me,” she said. “I wasn’t tired. I was nervous to the point my stomach was hurting.”

Williams also said she needs to work on her steps in that event, which has been a problem.

Williams earned 24 points, which was good enough to give McKeel a top-10 finish in the team competition. The Wildcats finished eighth.

Frostproof’s Cristal Gomez also medaled in the 2A meet and reacted like she won gold. Seeded last out of 16 runners with a time of 5:20.61, Gomez ran a season-best time of 5:11.66 to finish seventh. It broke her previous-best time this season by eight seconds.

“I was doubting myself a lot (prior to the race),” Gomez said. “I said I’m not going to make it, I’m ranked last, I’m bad this year, I can’t do it, and my dad was like, ‘Stop talking like that. You just run your race. If you know you can handle these girls, you go for it.' And I did. I went the whole way and I was like, I got this.”

Gomez trained with her older brother, Antonio, and the work paid off.

“He told me you got to push,” she said. “If you want this you’ve got to push.”

The only medalist in the boys competition was McKeel’s Isaac Morrison, who finished eighth in the 800 with a personal-best 1:59.97. He was seeded 12th with a seed time of 2:01.30.

In the 400, Frostproof senior Deandre Knighten was seeded fourth but finished out of the medals in 12th place.

In the wheelchair competition, Frostproof junior Zachary Holman won all four events, the 200 (36.27), the 800 (2:36.99), the shot put (25-5.5) and the javelin (62-0).