By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

TRUSSVILLE – Over the weekend of April 17-18, four county schools competed and scored points in the Hewitt-Trussville Invitational in the last meet preceding the sections meets, which will take place from April 24-25. Pelham, Thompson, Spain Park and Briarwood Christian all had athletes break into the scoring column in the final regular season meet.

Per usual, the Lady Panthers of Pelham were the top female finishers in the area. The Pelham girls finished fourth out of 10 teams, missing third place by half of a point and missing second by just four and a half points. Junior Erin Hines finished second in the 200-meter dash while teammate and classmate Mary Grace Strozier finished second in the 800-meter run as well. Freshman Ayala Seaborn won the discus throw with a throw over one meter better than the second place finisher and also came in sixth in the shot put. Erin Long tied for third in the high jump to round out the top-three individual finishers for the Lady Panthers. The girls 4×800-meter relay team also won the relay by more than nearly 20 seconds.

Alandria McGurdy of Thompson finished fourth in the 100-meter dash and fourth in the 200-meter dash, respectively. Kateylen Bowles finished third in the 100-meter hurdles and Rebecca Harrell finished third in the 300-meter hurdles to round out the top-three finishers for the Lady Warriors. Zoe Shore won the 3,200-meter run and came in fourth in the mile run for Spain Park while Ashley Musachia came in seventh in the high jump for Briarwood Christian.

Thompson was the area leader on the boys’ side of competition, placing third overall out of 11 teams. Emmanuel Tait and Patrick Haywood finished third and fourth, respectively, in the 100-meter dash for the Warriors, with Tait beating Haywood by .02 seconds. Tait also won the 110-meter hurdles by a full second and won the 300-meter hurdles as well to lead all individual competitors with 26 points on the day.

Daniel Nixon of Spain Park finished third in the 400-meter dash while sophomore Christian Strong finished second in the 110-meter hurdles and eighth in the 300-meter hurdles. Mason Tittle was the only Pelham athlete to score in the boys’ meet, as he finished seventh in the javelin throw.