Saturday was a day of waiting at the Class AAAA track and field state championships at Spring Valley High School in Columbia.
That’s often the case at track meets, which can take up a good chunk of the day even when everything runs on schedule. If not, the slightest hiccup can have a ripple effect, and athletes competing in multiple events may have a lot of time to kill between events.
Then there are weather delays.
The wait was worth it for three area athletes who returned after a lengthy postponement to win state championships in their respective events. Aiken High’s Eliza King repeated as state champ in the javelin throw, classmate Braylon Staley won the triple jump and North Augusta’s Mekhi Bosket won the high jump.
Each had to find ways to pass the time - stretching to keep loose and eating were obvious choices - before returning to the field for warmups.
King, the reigning champ in the javelin who is chasing down top national marks, was disappointed with preliminary throws that were well below her standard - but still better than anyone else that day. She returned and saw fast improvement, and her final throw of 146′10″ was more than 36 feet better than her nearest challenger.
“I’m very pleased to win and beat my distance from last year by 10 feet,” she said. “That was the goal I had going into it, just to hopefully set a new state record. That’s what my goal was.”
King, a sophomore, is geared toward setting personal records each time she competes, but after an atypical start to the day she needed to reset mentally, generate some positive energy and reflect on any other tweaks she needed to make.