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Spring Fling Friday: Top 5 moments

Gallatin's Brett Neelly won his third straight AAA discus title Friday.

Gallatin’s Brett Neelly won his third straight AAA discus title Friday.

Pearl-Cohn put it all together at Friday’s Class A/AA boys track and field championships.

The heavily favored Firebirds, who were edged by Greeneville in last year’s team championships by just 1.5 points, delivered a dominating performance on Friday, securing Pearl-Cohn’s first boys team championship in program history.

“For 364 days we’d been waiting for this opportunity; the opportunity to show our true grit,” Pearl-Cohn coach Andrew Reynolds said. “Everybody came prepared and ready to run, and it showed tonight.”

Pearl-Cohn, which captured wins in three of four relay events — including the 4×200, the 4×100 and the 4×400 — as well as the 200- and 400- meter dashes, tallied 96 points on Friday, beating runner-up Knoxville Catholic by 44 points.

Division II: Brentwood Academy’s George Patrick entered the week with high hopes, and the standout junior did not disappoint.

In a performance that rivaled that of Ensworth’s Tyra Kittens on Thursday, Patrick tallied wins in four open events on Friday, including the long jump (23-8.75), the triple jump (47-3.25), the 110-meter hurdles (14.24) and the 300-meter hurdles (39.24).

“I’m happy with everything,” said Patrick, whose Eagles (151 points) nearly doubled up second-place finishers Montgomery Bell Academy (76) and Father Ryan (76). “Everything was hard fought down to the last event, so I’m very happy.”

Class AAA: Brentwood High was victorious in the afternoon’s first running event, winning the 3,200-meter relay with a time of 7:48.20, while Ravenwood and Centennial captured a pair of individuals wins as well.

Ravenwood’s Matt Rainey won the 800-meter run with a time of 1:53.64, while Centennial’s Jordan Thomas took first in the 200-meter dash (22.11)

Gallatin’s Brett Neelly captured his third consecutive Class AAA discus championship, winning the event with a toss of 183 feet, 11 inches.

Other field event winners included:

FRA’s Matt Ward in the Division II pole vault (14-0).

Page’s Peter Leichner in the Class A/AA pole vault (14-0).

Lipscomb’s Rutger Reitmaier in the Class A/AA shot put (48-0.5).

Whited, FCS take DII-A title

Friendship Christian’s Tana Whited proved to be clutch twice in the DII-A final.

The Lady Commanders went on to win their first state softball title since 2010 with a wild 11-10 victory in 10 innings over King’s Academy.

“I don’t even have words to describe it,” Whited, a senior said. “That’s a heck of a way to go out, I’ll say that.”

Whited’s solo homer in the seventh sent the game into extra innings and her two-run single in the 10th tied things, setting up Jordan Burton’s walk-off RBI-single.

Forrest wins second title

In 2008 a fifth-grader named Savannah Brothers watched the Forrest softball team win the Class A title and said one day she would do the same.

Seven years later she lived up to that promise.

Brothers and the rest of the Lady Rockets defeated Knoxville’s Grace 7-3 in the Class A championship game Friday afternoon to earn the program’s second state title.

“I’ve wanted this since I was 5 years old, ever since I could pick up a bat,” said Brothers, a senior catcher. “This is what I wanted right here.”

Henry gets AAA tennis title

It’s tough to come back from down a set in a tennis state final, especially when you’re a freshman facing a senior, but that’s exactly what Brentwood freshman Somer Henry did Friday afternoon.

After dropping the first set, Henry stormed back and took two straight sets from Dobyns Bennett’s Josie Rogers to upset the senior (3-6, 6-2, 6-0) and capture the Class AAA championship in her first trip to state.

“I had to make some adjustments because she’s a good player and she was playing really well,” Henry said.

Summertown falls short

It was nearly a storybook ending for Summertown’s baseball team in the Class A championship.

But this storybook didn’t have a happy ending for the Eagles.

With the bases loaded and two out, a grounder to second base led to the final out and a Knoxville Grace 8-6 victory to give the Rams the first state championship in school history in any sport.

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