Milton Boys Track Team Places 5th At GHSA 7A State Meet

ROME, GA — The Milton High School track & field teams concluded their season this past weekend with their 2nd best ever team state finish for the boys while the girls got a surprise new school record in the discus throw.

BOYS

The Eagles followed up their 4th place team finish in 2017 with more qualifiers and a very good shot at a top-3 team finish but Milton (5th-42pts) couldn’t hold off the larger school programs on the final day of the meet and settled for the first spot outside the trophy winning teams.

The team highlights for the Eagles were the running of senior Sam Bowers in both the 3200m & 1600m, senior Davis Smith in the Long Jump & hurdles, senior Nicholas Yanek in the 3200m and junior Matthew Mazzacano in the Pole Vault. Bowers, the reigning 3200m state champion, took the race out from the gun and led wire-to-wire to defend his title (1st-9:13.79) and garner his 4th individual state championship (Bowers also has 2 state titles in cross country, 2016 & 2017) and break his own school record by close to 3-seconds.

Bowers would return the following evening and lead for over 3 laps of the 1600m only to be passed by sophomore Kyle Harkabus of East Coweta (1st-4:13.35) with 200m remaining to finish as runner up (2nd-4:16.26). The runner-up spot for Bowers is one position better than he finished in 2017 in the 1600m event. Fellow senior Nicholas Yanek made the 3200m an All-Milton affair taking runner-up honors (2nd-9:16.38) and besting the old school record as well.

After the first day of the meet, the Eagles had a commanding team lead. On Day 2, senior Davis Smith soared to a new Milton school record in the Long Jump to also garner runner up honors! Smith (2nd-23’6.5”) broke his own record by close to 5 inches! Junior Matthew Mazzacano then soared 14’ 6" to finish a hard-fought 4th place in the pole vault to keep Milton upfront going into the 1600m. After Bowers got the runner-up spot, the Eagles led going into the final day of the meet.

Milton’s only competitor on the final day was Smith in the 300m hurdles. Smith had a strong race (6th-39.44) to score Milton’s final points of the meet. Also competing for the Eagles included senior Solomon Vanhorse (100m-15th), senior Ryan Beitzell (800m-14th), senior Lucas Moore (Long Jump-15th) and the 4x100m Relay team of Smith, Vanhorse, Demarie Taylor & DJ Albright (15th).

GIRLS

Milton got the biggest surprise and a new school record as junior Amanda Sanchez (6th-114’09”) launched to close to a 12 foot personal best to break the school record by 3 feet & that had stood since 2000! Sanchez improved her personal best by over 13 feet just to qualify for the state meet. Throwing in the first flight, Sanchez had to win the flite in order to throw in the state final, which she did!

Sanchez was the lone scorer for the Lady Eagles (27th-3pts). Also competing for Milton were senior Annie Gallagher (800m-9th, 1600m-11th), junior Taylor Cushman (3200m-10th in a personal best) & sophomore Nyah Hernandez (3200m-12th)