.gif)
The Rice Raiders hosted the Swamp Relays at their home field on Thursday, March 28.
Multiple schools competed at the relays, but Rice’s boys’ team had one of the strongest showing.
Starting in the 400m Jon Woods got things going for Rice early with a 4th place finish. He finished the race in 53.42 seconds, but this was just the tip of the iceberg.
In the 800m, the Raiders finished three runners in the top 10, Jael Valles Serrano, Lance Dingler and Jake Morales. The trio finished in 2nd, 4th and 7th, respectively.
Serrano and Dingler reappeared in the 1600m race, where they earned 2nd and 7th place, along with teammate Payton Englebrecht who came in 4th place.
Englebrecht came back in the 3200m race and followed up his 4th place performance in the 1600m by coming in 3rd in the 3200m. He finished the race in 10:31.35, ending his day in a high note.
Next was the hurdle races, and in the 110m and 300m hurdles, Tamarion Turner was the runner to beat. He finished both races with times of 16.16 in the 110m and 42.52 in the 300m. His times earned him 6th in the 110m and 5th in the 300m.
After the hurdles, it was the relay teams turn now to impact the Swamp Relays. The team of Robert Bennett, Davonte Smith, David Clark and Damion Hunt were in charge of the 4x100m run.
They came in 7th place as a team with a time of 44.40 but the Raiders still had more to show with their relay teams. In the 4x200m Bennett, Kordae Johnson, Keundric Pratt and Isiah Castillo were responsible for keeping the momentum going and they did.
They came in 3rd place with a time of 1:31.99 leading them up to the 4x400m relay where Woods made his return to the track. The 4x400 team was the same as the 4x200m team except Woods came in for Pratt.
The team finished with a time of 3:37.28 which earned them 5th place and closed out the relays for them.
In the field events the Raiders had just as solid of a performance. In the shot put Robert Myers and Devron Bennett came in 2nd and 8th place respectively, Myers threw 50 feet and nine inches while Bennett threw 40 feet six inches.
Bennett set a new personal record with that throw and helped his team climb the standings becasue of it.
In the Discuss event Dyren Johnson and Myers finished in 3rd and 7th place after throwing 133 feet and two inches and 124 feet respectively. This left the jumping events where the basketball players took over.
Bennett, Pratt and Woods all participated in the high jump, and they all finished in the top five. Bennett placed 3rd jumping 5 feet 10 inches and Pratt and Woods tied for 4th jumping 5 feet 8 inches.
Then, in the long and triple jump, Turner came in 4th place for both events. He jumped 20 feet and 11 and a half inches in the long jump then 43 feet and 3.25 inches in the triple jump.
In the girl’s races the were led by Tatiana Mills and Fallan Wied in the 110m hurdles and 300m hurdles. Mills finished the 110m hurdles in 17.34 seconds while Wied finished the 300m hurdles in 52.09 seconds.
Mills led the team of Klair Hailey, Kimberly Hernandes and Anabel Gonzales in the 4x100m and the 4x200m and they came in 7th and 8th place in those races. The team posted a time of 52.12 seconds in the 4x100m relay and a 1:54.58 time in the 4x200m relay.
The Lady Raiders closed out their day with a 4th place finish from Tricelle Fields in the shot put where she threw 35 feet and one inch.
The Raiders made a lot of good progress as a program at the Swamp Relays and will look for areas they can improve in moving forward as the district meet is fast approaching.
