James River’s Jayden Alston put the shot 51’ 10.25” in the Virginia High School League Class 2 state track meet last week to finish second in the state. The meet was held at Liberty University in Lynchburg on March 4 and 5.
Alston, a senior, set a new indoor school record with his state performance. He broke a record held by Michael Albert since the 2016 season.
River’s boys scored 14 points to finish in a tie for 17th in the state, as Gavin Binns also scored with a third place finish in the 55-meter dash in 6.58 seconds. Bruton High is the state boys’ champ.
Lee High School won the girls’ Class 2 state championship with 67.5 points. River had three individuals and a relay team score to finish 12th with 15 points.
Photos by Jon Fleming
All the River girls’ points came from sprinters. In the 55-dash Denver Rinehart was fifth at 7.58 and Kaia Binns was eighth at 7.65. Freshman Mirai Burton took a fourth in the 300 meters with a time of 44.48, and the foursome of Rinehart, Burton, Maddie Davidson and Vivian Vernon ran to a fourth place finish in the 4×200 relay. Their time was 1:53.77.
“I thought we did real well,” said River coach Greg Dyer. “We didn’t have a lot of competitors but we had seven score.”
