Ruston High athletes shine at Hoss Garrett Relays

With multi-sport athletes providing reinforcements to an already talented program, the Ruston track and field team put together a successful day at the 31st annual Hoss Garrett Relays Thursday.

Between junior Aidan Anding’s winning the boys long jump with a leap of 22 feet, 11 inches — 10 inches better than the secondplace finisher — and Alaysia Taylor-Braggs (first, 49.58) and Natalie Parker (second, 49.83) dominating the girls 300-meter hurdles, the Bearcats wrapped up a late and rainy night at Hoss Garrett Stadium with satisfaction.

“I’m really happy with the level of competition we had,” RHS track coach Trey Smith said. “When you have 24 teams at a meet, it gives you stronger finishes across the board compared to a small eight to nine-team field. That allowed us to throw out an A team, B team, and a C team to see them compete so we can figure out what’s the best lineup are, and which kids need to run or do a field event to best help the team. I was pleased with the level of performances by everybody.”

Among the other highlight finishes for Ruston included the boys 1600- meter run with Thomas Rogers winning the event in 4:24.39, and his teammate Landon Byrd not far behind in second place in 4:34.82.

The boys 4x100 meter relay team of Anding, Dylone Brooks, Imani Dean and Bryton Carr finished first in 42.74 seconds.

“They ran their best time of the year, so that was good to see,” Smith said.

Later on, the boys 4x400 team of Anding, Malcom Pierce, Carr and Ke’Mondrick Hunter finished second in 3:26.76.

In the girls 4x200 meter relay, the team of T’Avion Clark, LaNiya Robinson, Taniyah Johnson and Megan Modest finished second in 1:45.20. Parker Nations finished second in the girls 1600-meter run in 5:13.66, while Hallie Hebert finished third in 5:26.65.

A standout for Smith was Clark’s winning the girls 400-meter run in a personal best time of 57.15.

“That was really big for us. She’s been one our best sprinters and she really came up big for us in that,” Smith said of Clark. “I’d imagine that will be top 10 in the state when they do rankings.”

Smith was also pleased with sophomore Journi Douglas, joining the program after wrapping up her season on the basketball court, who finished second in the discus with a throw of 99 feet and 4 inches.

Overall, Smith said the Hoss Garrett Relays ended successfully for the Bearcats as they continue to prepare for the 2-5A meet in April.

“ We always appreciate the Garrett family for their support of our program, and we always love to honor the late, great Hoss Garrett,” Smith said. “It was also great having Coach (Dave) Anderson here to help us with the pole vault. It’s always great when we can have alumni and former coaches here and we all just want to honor them for what they’ve done for us.”