Key-White claims 1-A high jump crown as WPA girls finish 4th

GREENSBORO — Junior Rachel Key-White finally got her state championship as she and four Wilson Prep teammates made an impact Monday, May 20, at the NCHSAA 1-A track and field championships.

Key-White, who finished second in girls high jump at the NCHSAA indoor championships in February, cleared the bar at 5 foot, 4 inches, Monday at Marcus T. Johnson Track on the campus of North Carolina A&T State University. She tied with Robbinsville leaper Zoie Shuler to share the state crown.

Key-White, who finished third in long jump, sparked the Tigers to a fourth-place finish with 40 points, a point behind Avery County and Lejeune tied for second. Wilson Prep scored in all but one event in which it was entered. Swain County ran away with the girls state title with 94 points while the Maroon Devils also won the boys meet.

“Oh yeah I feel great,” said Wilson Prep girls head coach Maurice Williams. “I was just telling them  we did a great job with five girls. One team had about 90 girls from the West.”

Junior Ty’Nasia Emory was third and senior Jakayla Whitehead took eighth in the girls 100-meter dash. Emory also placed sixth in the 200. The pair, along with Key-White and sophomore Janiya Johnson comprised the Tigers 4×200 relay that finished second while Prep’s 4×100 unit of junior Aaliyah Jones, Whitehead, Emory and Johnson took third.

Johnson placed eighth in the 400 and 10th in the 200.

Key-White’s day started promisingly at the high jump pit, where she had won an Adidas Indoor National Championship in February by clearing 5-6. While she was in the process of competing in high jump, Key-White missed the call for the 100-meter hurdles, an event in which she could have placed in the top five, based on her previous times.

“We just had some misfortune today with Rachel,” said Williams.

On top of that, Key-White, who turned her ankle during the long jump at the NCHSAA 1-A East Regional meet at Wilson Prep on May 11, struggled with the injury during the 4×200 relay. Despite having the top seed time of 1 minute, 45 seconds in winning the regional, the Tigers fell short of matching that in finishing second in 1:45.09, less than half a second behind Mountain Island Charter in 1:44.71.

“It swelled back up and showed in the 4×2,” Williams said of Key-White’s gimpy ankle.

Emory couldn’t catch meet Most Outstanding Performer Aniya Edwards in the 100 and 200. The Wilson Prep junior finished the 100 in 12.25, some eight-hundredths of second slower than her prelim but Edwards ran a faster final to win with 12.02 after running 12.11 in prelims.

Emory was sixth in the 200 26.10 while Johnson was 10th in 26.29 while Edwards won in 24.5.

The Tigers 4×100 relay came in just under a second behind winner Mountain Island Charter in 49.05. Wilson Prep was third at 50.06 with Bradford Prep Charter clocking in a 49.15 in second.

Johnson picked up a point in the 400 by finishing eighth in 1:01.31. Elkin’s Edwards won that in 56.16.

Williams allowed that Swain County was going to be hard to beat with its legion of distance runners but that a third straight runner-up finish was there for the Tigers, who took second at the 1-A Tar-Roanoke Athletic Conference championship and the regional.

“The other teams will beat up on each other if we just do our part,” he said. “We didn’t hold it up on our end.”

In the boys meet, Wilson Prep got its point from the 4×200 relay of Ry’Pierre Williams, Taquan Whitaker, Jayden Jones and Emmanuel Mahone that finished eighth. The Tigers also got a 10th-place finish from Xavier Williams in shot put with a heave of 42-3.75 while Bobby Key no-heighted in high jump.

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