Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Radford’s Joshua Downing placed 7th in both the 1600 m and 800 m races at the Blacksburg Invitational.
Blacksburg High School was definitely a bad host in Saturday’s track invitational at Bill Brown Stadium as they took both the boys and girls titles.
The Blacksburg boys outdueled Pulaski 161 to 80 with Cave Spring third, Auburn fourth, Christiansburg sixth and Eastern Montgomery 14th. Radford finished in 15th place.
The Blacksburg girls tallied 152 to Pulaski’s 62 for the win. Salem was third with 60 points, and Christiansburg fourth with 54. Auburn finished sixth with 38 points, and Eastern Montgomery scored 18 points.
Bruin distance runner, Ben Fleming, provided a little suspense in the 1,600 meters coming from third place late in the race to win the event. He was clocked at 4:25.51 after taking the lead with less than two laps remaining.
Cole Beck also showed he was back. The Blacksburg sophomore took the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.58 seconds. This was only his second meet after recovering from shoulder surgery following football season.
He is the defending state 3A 100 and 200 champion, but did not run in the 200 later in the day on Saturday because of a sore hamstring.
Blacksburg’s Thomas Coffey won both the 110 and 300 hurdles, while Solomon Ghosh the boys’ discus event. The 400 and 3,200 relay teams also took first place in the meet.
Christiansburg’s Ethan Mills set a meet record in the 800 meters with a time of 1:59.47.
On the women’s side of the track, Blacksburg’s Stephanie Gardner won the 100-hurdle event. Gardner has been slowed this spring after suffering a foot injury shortly before the regional championships last year.
Christiansburg was without all-around performer Maddie Padgett who suffered an injury earlier in the week.