Parish 5A track squads fail to rank inside top 20 at state meet

The parish's top track stars made the trip to LSU's Bernie Moore Track Stadium on Saturday for the 5A LHSAA Track and Field Championships.

The Catholic boys were able to claim their third straight outdoor track title while the Zachary girls won their second straight championship.

Fresh off of dominating performances in both the District 5-5A meet and the regional, Catholic once again made things look easy as they took the title by a 81.2-point margin with Ruston, Pineville, Natchitoches Central and St. Paul's rounding out the rest of the top five.

Zachary narrowly edged out Ruston, 47-42, for the girl's championship. Mandeville, Thibodaux and Barbe completed the top five.

As for the Ascension squads, the St. Amant boys had the best finish of the meet at No. 20.

They got two top-six performances--both of which came from the field.

Keilan Raven finished third in the triple-jump with a jump of 44 feet and 7.25 inches. Raven earned second-place finishes at both the district and regional meets.

Teammate Dylan Stephens finished fifth in the discus with a measurement of 146 feet and seven inches. Stephens finished in second in the event at both the district and regional meets.

The girls had their best finish come from East Ascension as they landed in the No. 21 spot. Dutchtown finished in 24th, and St. Amant finished right behind in 26th.

The Lady Spartans were led by a strong performance from recent Southeastern signee Ariane Williams.

Williams finished third in the 400 with a time of 55.81 seconds, and she finished in fifth in the 100 with a time of 12.38.

She earned third-place finishes in both events at the regional meet, and she won the two events at the district meet.

Teammate Tushanna Davis finished sixth in the long-jump with a jump of 16 feet and 7.5 inches. Davis finished third in the long-jump at the regional meet.

Dutchtown got their lone top-six finish from Leah Scott as she finished third in the long-jump with a jump of 17 feet and 9.5 inches. She finished second in the event at both the regional and district meets.

St. Amant also earned one top-six finish. That was done by Cameron Matherne as she finished fifth in the javelin event with a throw of 119 feet and five inches.

Matherne won the javelin event in the district meet and finished third in regional competition.