Every single point matters when you're battling for a state championship, and that proved to be exactly the case on Saturday for the Darlington Tigers.
Darlington put together several strong performances over multiple events during the three-day Class A Division I State Championship to compile 92 points, which was good enough to narrowly edge out Athens Christian by one for the team state title at Barron Stadium.
The Tigers had a trio of state-championship finishes, including Grant Hutton's first-place effort in the long jump with a distance of 22 feet, 8 inches on Thursday. Following that up on Saturday with top efforts were the 4x200 meter relay team of Brooke Temple, Sammy Kunczewski, Link Lignell and Joe Womack who crossed the finish line first with a time of 1 minute, 27.86 seconds and the 4x400 relay team of Womack, Temple, Lignell and Anthony Natarella who finished first with a 3:22.37.
Backing up those championship efforts were podium finishes to collect valuable points from numerous other individuals and relay teams. Womack took second in the 400 (48.99) on Saturday while Brock Ferguson finished second in the 3200 (9:39.02) on Thursday. The Tigers' other runner-up finish came from the 4x800 relay team of Ferguson, Natarella, Aiden Parsa and Hayes Parsa with an 8:02.60.
Rounding out the scoring performances for Darlington were Temple in the 200 (sixth, 22.59), Lignell in the 400 (fifth, 50.00) and pole vault (third, 13-6), Natarella in the 800 (fifth, 2:00.37), Hayes Parsa in the 800 (seventh, 2:01.25) and 1600 (sixth, 4:30.74), Aiden Parsa in the 3200 (seventh, 10:03.89), the 4x100 relay team of Temple, Kunczewski, Jace Hatcher and Jayce Donaldson (third, 43.16), Hutton in the high jump (sixth, 6-0), Womack in the triple jump (seventh, 43-7) and Noah Duggan in the pole vault (sixth, 12-6).
Darlington's girls had a solid showing at the state meet as well finishing with 14 total points to take 18th in the team standings. The Lady Tigers were led by a fifth-place finish by the 4x400 relay team of Evie Shropshire, Molly Ledbetter, Presley Dixon and Emma Hunt with a 4:10.55.
Other podium finishes to earn team points came from Cora Fannin in the 3200 (seventh, 11:54.97), Shropshire in the 100 hurdles (eighth, 17.35) and 300 hurdles (eighth, 49.01), Callie Dempsey in the long jump (sixth, 16-11) and Presley Dixon in the triple jump (sixth, 34-1).
Published in the Rome News-Tribune on May 12, 2024
