PEMBROKE — In one of the the final tuneups before regionals, the Southeastern Conference track and field teams looked to secure last-minute bids into regionals at the conference championship meet held at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke on Wednesday.
The Lumberton girls and the Purnell Swett boys each grabbed fourth-place finishes in the event, while the Hoke County boys and the Pinecrest girls took home top honors. Lumberton’s boys came in fifth place and the Purnell Swett girls finished sixth.
The team finish for the Pirates was about like last season, a mark that coach Todd Nicoll said he was hoping to top this season, but a downturn in numbers couldn’t help out.
“I was hoping to improve on it this year, but we didn’t have the numbers like we did last year,” Nicoll said. “Overall, I’m pleased with some individual performances.”
Lumberton’s top performances came from London Thompson with a second-place finish in the girls 100-meter and Kwashek Breeden with third in boys 110-meter hurdles. Fourth-place finishes for the Pirates came from Stephon Lloyd in the boys 400-meter, Tyreik McCallum in the boys 200-meter, Sequoia McMillian in the girls discus, Marlena McClure in the girls shot put and Blake Musselwhite in the boys shot put.
While the individual accomplishments pleased Nicoll, it was a close finish by the boys 4×100 meter relay team that stood out the most. The team finished third in a close race where the top three teams all came within .17 of each other. Richmond Senior came away with the win.
“That was probably the most impressive performance today by us, I thought,” he said. “Most of our meets we haven’t came that close to winning, but we were right there with all of them. We could’ve won that. We’ve had different guys running that throughout the year so we haven’t had consistency on that aspect.”
As a result, those individual performances are what he expects to lead to a positive showing at regionals in two weeks.
“I expect to take eight to 10 to regionals,” Nicoll said.
It was a pleasant surprise for Purnell Swett coach Josh Deese when the final results were announced and his boys team claimed third, but he saw it fitting for the work his team had put in this season.
“I am extremely excited about that because we showed progress this year,” Deese said. “I’m proud of the boys that finished and competed and ended the season off on a high point.”
Leading the way for the Rams was Tristan Locklear, who finished fourth in the boys 300 meter hurdles and third in the 200 meter and Nate Brooks with a second-place finish in the boys long jump and third in triple jump. Other high field event finishes came from Keonn Clark in the boys long jump with a third-place finish and Jake Locklear with third in the boys discus.
Lawerance Locklear came in fourth in the boys 800-meter.
