Sobota, Hardin Valley girls have big day at track sectional

Bearden High School’s Joshua Sobota and Hardin Valley Academy’s girls grabbed the headlines Saturday at the Class AAA Section 1 track and field championships.

Sobota, the top-ranked thrower in the state, uncorked a personal-best throw of 62 feet, 9 inches to easily win the shot put and break the 26-year-old school record in the event.

Hardin Valley’s girls won nine events and scored 163 points to capture their fourth sectional title in a row. West (134) was a close second. Well back in the top five were Science Hill (48), Dobyns-Bennett (44.5) and Sevier County (39).

The sectional was a prelude to the state track and field championships May 23-26 in Murfreesboro. The top four finishers in each event qualified for the state meet.
Sobota, who also won the discus at 167-1, was already looking ahead to the state meet after Saturday’s strong showing in the shot put.

“It’s a new PR and I’m really happy with it,” said the 6-foot-4, 230-pound junior.
“I just want to stay focused and motivated for the state. In the shot put, you’ve kind of got to be an animal, but you’ve got to stay calm. Winning both (the shot put and discus) at the state meet has been my goal.”

Sobota has some lofty numbers he’s shooting for at state: “I would like to hit 190 to 200 (feet) in the discus and 63 to 65 feet in the shot put.”

Meanwhile, based on their strong Sectional showing, Hardin Valley’s girls appear to have enough firepower to make a solid run at a second (2012) state title.

“We’ll see where we’re at in about 10 days,” said HVA coach Bryan Brown.

“I think we’ve got enough to be in the mix. We’ve got a lot of events covered.”

In typical fashion, the Lady Hawks were strong across the board Saturday.

“Pretty much all over the track we did well,” said Brown. “Relays are an emphasis, and we qualified all four for the state.”

Hardin Valley notched relay wins in the 4x100 (Kiara Inman, Tori Adams, Haley Stinnett) in 49.06 seconds, the 4x200 (Gia Faoro, Inman, Adams, Stinnett) in 1:43.02, and the 4x400 (Faoro, Lizzie Davis, Ellie Bachmann, Kensi Gray) in 4:01.68.
Other winners for the Lady Hawks on the track were Gray in the 800 (2:20.04) and Timaya Ray in the 200 (25.18).

HVA also tallied four individual wins in the field events with Mandy Prescott taking the discus (110-11), Rebekah Hampton the long jump (16-6.25), Symphony Buxton the shot put (41-11.75) and Davis the triple jump (34-6).

On the boys side, Dobyns-Bennett was first with 95 points, followed by Hardin Valley (85), Jefferson County (80), Bearden (72) and Morristown West (53).

Other double winners for the boys were Jefferson County’s Kyle Nabe in the 110 (15.15) and 300 (39.69) hurdles, and Bearden’s Jacob Sobota in the pole vault (13-0) and the decathlon (6,472 points).